Everybody has imagined being a part of the Warhammer 40k universe. Whether a Space Marine, a Guardsman, or even… a Xenos? But how about a Rogue Trader, an individual with the power to explore and conquer distant worlds in the name of the Imperium? I recently got a copy of Warhammer 40: Rogue Trader and I’ve been doing exactly that! So is Rogue Trader the kind of game for you?
The Gameplay
Let’s start with gameplay. Rogue Trader can best be described as being remarkably similar to other titles such as Baldur’s Gate or BattleTech. I’d like to break this part down by its RPG elements and then its combat. The game has many things that RPG gamers will love, such as skills, parties, and consequence-based decision-making. Every character can be very customizable, both in terms of looks and background. You pick what kind of world you’ve come from, your career, and your class, with each choice having unique perks associated with it. For instance, I made a Captain who is from a Hive World, he was in the Guard, and I picked the Officer class. As a result, he is super good at speech checks and has many leadership abilities. Something I’d like to mention, however, is that I think there’s actually a bit of perk bloat. A good portion are universal, and each part of the background offers maybe five or six perks each. What I’ve done is focus on the unique perks since each character in your party has little overlap.
The Gameplay – Combat
Now for the Combat. It’s very much like XCOM in all the right ways. Each character takes a turn, and the order is seemingly random as opposed to team one taking all their turns and then team two. And you’ll never believe this, but in Rogue Trader, it actually rewards you for going for low percentage hits. Ranged weapons offer a single shot, which is more accurate but less damaging, and then there’s a burst, which is more damaging but less accurate. The enemy will almost always burst fire and can usually score at least one hit per volley. It’s also very fun to watch a random rebel shoot his friend in the back of the head by accident. Blood for the Blood God, I suppose. Each class plays differently in combat, whether that be a tanky melee fighter, ranged DPS, or even magical/psyker abilities that are just as overpowered as you think they’d be. Something that I’d like to point out is that there is very little room for healing mid-fight. There are medkits, but the character has to be trained to use them, and very few classes have a healing ability. Thankfully, you’re back to full after each fight, and anyone who “died” gets a debuff until they return to the ship. All-in-all, I’m loving the gameplay. It’s immersive, it’s fun, and it’s Warhammer, which will always get points from me.
The Plot
Now for the plot. I’ll cover the Prologue and then avoid any spoilers after that. You start on the ship as a guest of honor. It turns out you’re a long-distance relative of the owner of the vessel, a Rogue Trader. She has gathered you and one other fellow because you’re both going to be groomed to be named her heir. It turns out that this Rogue Trader has done pretty well for herself; she has the ship and many worlds under her direct command. But before any real introductions or training can be done, the ship is attacked. Many servitors (machines) have been hacked, and an uprising is underway! You fight your way through many chaos worshippers to save important members of the crew. But not everyone survives this coup; your Rogue Trader relative and the heir both perish, and one of your party members officially names you Rogue Trader, and the rest of the game opens up.
I’ve done my best to compress the plot because the actual prologue took me hours to finish. Perhaps that’s an issue with the pacing, but when you’re playing it, nothing feels drawn out. With the exception of the very end of the prologue. A lot of the game is voice-acted, but not all of it. Which is confusing because voiced characters will make you read paragraphs of text with no voiceover. And that’s another thing! We’re playing a video game! Why does the game describe what a character does in green text as opposed to actually showing us with the model? That specific gripe is going to last the whole game, unfortunately, so make sure your reading glasses are on your desk. But don’t let that put you off from what is otherwise a very well put, intriguing story.
The Soundtrack
The last thing I’ll talk about is the soundtrack. I’ll just come out and say that this is probably my favorite part of the game so far. The soundtrack is such a home run. It has everything you’d expect in a Warhammer game. Choirs, organs, but sometimes some metal. But what surprised me is the tracks with a lot of synth in them. They sound like they were taken straight from Cyberpunk 2077, and that’s certainly not a bad thing. I do wish that the tracks were either longer or that they cycled a couple more in for certain areas. There was one long-range fight, and everyone was in full cover, so you can guess it took a long time. And unfortunately, the music would loop over and over, which became very noticeable pretty quickly.
Is Rogue Trader Good?
To close, I’ll ask you, noble reader, two questions. Do you like Warhammer, and do you like XCOM? If you answered yes to at least one of those questions, then I can definitely recommend it. It’s a very long game, though, so I would caution people who are looking for quick and easy games or parents with a couple of hours here and there. The game has been out for a while now, and there are two expansions out so far. It’s very polished, and I haven’t encountered any bugs yet. This is NOT sponsored, but I want to thank my good friend Baron for giving me a copy of the game! Good luck, Lord Captain.
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