Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader Is A Dense, Dark RPG That’s Worth The Investment
Aggressive sales tactics in the Warhammer universe.
If you’re anything like me, seeing a game called Rogue Trader probably tells you two things about what you’re about to play. One, it’s a roguelike, and two, it’s a game about managing a shop or otherwise hocking merchandise for fun and profit. Except here you (by which I mean I) would be wrong. Rogue Trader is actually a recent entry in the grimdark Warhammer 40,000 universe, a massive RPG somewhat in the style of Baldur’s Gate 3. If you happen to be in the mood for up to 100 hours of dense RPG action, Rogue Trader is available on Xbox Game Pass beginning February 20.
Anyone who’s starting Rogue Trader without more than a glancing familiarity with Warhammer 40K is in for a bit of a rough start. The game is set within the Imperium, home of the bloodthirsty fascist Space Marines, but your character occupies a much higher position in society. Despite sounding like someone selling dubious goods on the black market, a Rogue Trader in Warhammer 40K’s world is an extremely privileged member of the political elite, vested with the power to do basically anything you want in pursuit of profit while commanding a ship crewed by thousands of underlings. Since your character is already deeply embedded in Imperium society, there’s very little in the way of introduction to Rogue Trader’s world, and you’ll need to put your brain to work untangling the intricacies of space infighting and demons lurking in hyperspace.
This is about as cheerful as things get in Warhammer 40K.
Rogue Trader isn’t any kinder when it comes to combat. Developer Owlcat Games is no stranger to tabletop adaptations, having made two Pathfinder games, Kingmaker and Wrath of the Righteous. Both games were plenty complex. This time around, though, it’s loosely adapting the 2009 tabletop RPG Rogue Trader, which is a good deal crunchier, and certainly less familiar to most players.
"We are trying to make it accessible, it's still a computer role-playing game with a lot of building of character, a lot of interactions between mechanics. So it will never be as accessible as say Ori and the Blind Forest," Alexander Mishulin, Owlcat's creative director, told Inverse in a 2023 interview.
That complexity carries over to the video game adaptation, complete with lengthy equations describing how much a new skill will increase your attack damage or how a given attack calculates its chance to penetrate an enemy’s defense. Choosing how to upgrade your party members or even when specific skills are the most useful in combat can be a bewildering affair, but spend enough time in Rogue Trader’s grimly fascinating world and you’ll get the hang of it.
Your reward for wading through Rogue Trader’s combat calculus is a delightful battle system based largely around wringing every percentage point you can out of the math that governs your attacks. Rogue Trader frequently puts your party up against overwhelming hordes of enemies, and only by making full use of every skill in your arsenal and exploiting the game’s systems can you hope to survive. Even when your party is at the peak of its power, doing everything you can to can to claw out an advantage is a must. Rogue Trader is an often unforgiving game, but it also hands you the tools you need to utterly stomp your foes if you’re clever enough with how you use them. And if you’re not in the mood to become a human calculator in discerning the best use of every turn, a suite of customizable difficulty options makes it easy to tweak the experience to fit your own preferences.
Rogue Trader leans fully into its tabletop roots, crunchy stats and all.
Combat is where Rogue Trader really shines, but it’s about more than bouncing from one battle to another. Its story might not be as memorable as other sprawling RPGs, but the game is still full of sharp writing and fun characters. The world of Warhammer 40K is fascinating to explore, especially from the position of someone with the power to directly steer events across vast swaths of the Imperium’s space empire. Owing to the titular Rogue Trader’s position, the game also includes ship-to-ship combat that relies on tactics and positioning, as well as a kingdom management layer that lets you rule over your domain.
The biggest downside of Rogue Trader at launch was its many bugs. No, not the insectoid Tyranids that infest all of space in Warhammer 40K, but the arguably more annoying kind that make games crash or otherwise wreck the experience. Owlcat has squashed most of the bigger issues since release, but it’s still not an entirely seamless experience.
Like most Warhammer 40K games, Rogue Trader comes with a major learning curve, and won’t appeal to players who can’t stomach its endlessly dour setting. But for anyone looking for the next sprawling RPG to lose entire weeks to, Rogue Trader is an excellent addition to Xbox Game Pass.
Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader is available now on PlayStation, Xbox, and PC, and it’s included with Xbox Game Pass.
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