Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader

There simply hasn’t been a better cRPG set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe so far. Rogue Trader captures the atmosphere of the setting extremely well, gives you plenty of meaningful choices, and can easily keep you engaged for dozens upon dozens of hours. It is also exceptionally well made from both a visual and audio standpoint. Even after nearly 100 hours, the sound of a bolter round slamming into some vile enemy of the Imperium, followed by assorted pieces of their brain decorating everything in the immediate vicinity, somehow never stopped being satisfying. The environments, combat effects, music and general sound design do a lot of heavy lifting in making the game feel properly grim, brutal and unmistakably Warhammer 40,000. That said, one thing needs to be made very clear: there is an ABSURD amount of reading. The tutorial and prologue are actually a bit misleading in that regard, because they contain a relatively generous amount of voice acting and make you think the rest of the game might be similar. IT IS NOT! The few fully voiced moments you do get are absolutely fantastic, though, which only makes you wish there were more of them. I finished the game in roughly 100 hours, although around the halfway point I had to take a break and play something completely different because I simply got tired of reading yet another wall of text. Once I came back, however, I had no trouble getting invested again and seeing the story through to the end. I bought Rogue Trader on sale, which made it an even better deal. My only real regret is that I didn’t buy the DLCs at the same time. At this point, though, I definitely do not feel like starting the entire game over just to experience them. I can count the RPGs I have completed twice on one hand, and with a 100-hour runtime and this much reading, Rogue Trader probably will not be joining that list. There is plenty you can criticize Owlcat for, especially the pacing in their games, which can be downright awful at times. But overall, I have yet to be disappointed by one of their games, and Rogue Trader is no exception. Now I’m just waiting for Dark Heresy :)