Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Traderis a game that I have been waiting a long time for.
The big difference this time is one of scale.
40k is all about maximalism, after all.
Everything is bigger and badder and defined by an urge for more.
Not only that, you’re a potential heir to the Von Valencius rogue trader dynasty.
(Spoilers: you quickly get the job thrust upon you.)
You’ll engage in space battles, manage colonies and direct massive planetary assaults.
But this is also still very much a party-based tactical game at heart.
The majority of the time is spent traversing dungeon-like environments and shooting lots of people in the face.
And, oh boy, is that some crunchy face-shooting to get your teeth into.
This attack will have +(5 + PER bonus- x stacks of exploit)% hit chance".
Even after hundreds of hours with the game, making sense of that kind of tooltip remains a struggle.
Thankfully, the combat itself is much easier to get your head around.
Or at least you are to begin with.
And increasing the appeal for 40k fans, everything looks and sounds exactly as you’d expect.
This note-perfect recreation of the setting is evident throughout Rogue Trader, particularly in its take on RPG morality.
Trying to be a hero is possible, but never made easy.
Viewable controller parameters and control remapping, camera movement speed parameters.
Unfortunately, the game is let down by some terrible performance and a lot of bugs.
Perhaps most egregiously, for an RPG, were bugs that broke entire questlines, particularly around companion stories.
Rogue Trader is bloated and maximalist, arcane and overwrought.
In short, it’s the perfect 40k game.
A copy of Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader was independently sourced for review by Eurogamer.
