I finished the entire game recently and I can say that it IS worth your time IF you are a huge WH40K fan. For the rest of you, only if you really really like cRPGs, because this is not a system you are familiar with, and the world itself is quite... different, yeah, that's the word, from all the rest on the market. So it might not be your cup of tea. But for me, a big WH40K nerd, it was amazing! Characters are some of the best in the genre - I am so sick and tired of characters that are established and more experienced than your MC (at least in the story setting) yet you can steer them and manipulate them with ease, and them starting on the same level as you. In WH40K companions are actually people. They have preferences, ideas, thoughts and outlooks. You are not going to change an opinion of a 50 year old naval officer (Abelard) and have him see your point of view. And it wouldn't make sense otherwise. You are not going to sleep with everyone/anyone, characters have preferences... and while a randy smuggler might be down to go in the sack with you, thousand year old Aeldari who sees you a little better than an animal is certainly not going to let you even touch her. You'll spend the entire game cultivating relationship with her just to have it culminate in a meditation session (which is extremely intimate for Aeldari). Also, they really drive the point that characters are not the same. While most of your crew is kinda semi-established with some experience (so it makes sense you start on the same power level), characters like Ulfar (Space Marine) are so OP compared to you that it does not make sense that he starts on Level 1. You actually get him 2/3 into the game, when his extreme power can naturally blend in with the rest of the group that has been developing over the course of the game. Compared to BG3 characters that all want to bone with you just because you looked in their general direction, or that they start on Lvl1 while being leaders of Demonic armies or centuries old vampires... Rogue Trader characters feel like actual characters instead of caricatures. Which is funny, because WH40K should be a caricature setting. The story itself is great and quite on point for WH40K universe. There are NO good guys here. You can make some good choices, but they rarely go the way you want them to. There is a reason why Imperium does things a certain way in this universe. I have only two problems with the game: 1. Bugs in the last chapter. One or two side quests can't progress unless you use a mod that lets you trigger certain events, and the major bug that blocks your transition from Chapter 4 to Chapter 5. Game breaking actually, and also requires the use of the said mod. 2. Game is easy. If you read carefully during the character creation and spend some time building your character, even Unfair difficulty (the hardest) becomes kinda easy. But playing on Normal, and actually paying attention - after 1/3 of the game you will just flow through every single encounter with ease, not suffering a single hit. I don't want ballbusting RPG, but it would be nice if I took a hit or two for the last 70 hours of the game, or have a fight progress into a second round at least. I've seen people finishing the final boss, on Unfair difficulty, in 2 rounds, without losing any companions or having any trouble what so ever. And let me tell you, final boss has over 17.000 hp while your guys have between 100 and 200 usually. On normal, if the boss didn't have scripted segments, you could probably finish him in ~3 shots on Normal difficulty before they even make a single move. It is ridiculous. Overall, I hope the bugs get fixed soon and that patches also bring a much needed balance to the fights. Because the rest of the game is f-ing stellar! I enjoyed every single second of it and after the first playthrough I started the second one.
I agree with most your points here. Definitely a good game. If you are a WH40K fan, then this is probably your DREAM game. Thanks for the thorough response and I love reading these types of comments to understand how others feel!
At last! A review different from "10/10 with no / SOME issues"! I really thank you for taking into account all goods AND BADS during the ranking, because a good game with no issues and a good game with a ton of issues shouldn't have the same rank. 100% agree with all been said in the video so it's definitely a like.
Glad you enjoyed it! I have seen that a lot of reviews have been overwhelming positive as if they are almost afraid to point out it's big flaws. Just because we can point out issues doesn't mean we can't enjoy the game.
With warhammer, specifically 40K, gaining popularity in the mainstream, I find that I now fear for the future quality of the franchise. I'm hoping the grimdark setting and fervent fan gatekeeping will prohibit any nefarious actors from manipulating the franchise, but we all know how it usually goes, lol
@@CJP.-pq3kr I don't want Warhammer to get the Star Wars and Marvel treatment. 40K is rich in lore, soul and character. I don't want to see those things get stripped away in an effort to be inclusive. When you try to appeal to everyone, you end up appealing to no one.
I bought Rogue Trader on a friday evening, started playing it after dinner. Probably somewhere around 6-7 PM. By the time sunday night rolled around, and I went to bed, 8:30-9 PM (I wake up really early for work), I had already clocked nearly 30 hours in the game. I haven't had a title engross me as much as this one in years
I have been thinking about buying Rogue Trader and this review is helping me to decide. I have played many many CRPG games but am completely unfamiliar with Warhammer lore. I have played a little of Vermintide 2 but that is a totally different type of game than the CRPG genre. I am very familiar with Owlcat studio as I put over 400 plus hours into pathfinder wotr and love their games for the deep storytelling and choices with consequences. Thank you for the great review.
That is Olw Cats mo. They tend to drop very complex, story rich games with a very meh secondary mini game in it and with a ton of bugs. Bit they are good on updating the game and releasing content. Also will say, they are good at having actions have real effects on the plot. Like their last game had like 7 paths, each one felt natural and r en changed your home base. Like being a lich got diffrent treatment than being an angel. Guess we'll see if Rouge Trader does the same.
tbh this is the first warhammer game i was interested in enough to keep playing vermintide always online looks like something id probably get bored with quickly and total war isnt my thing either.
A fair review. I subscribed. I got this came a couple of months ago and after 60 or so hours it still isn't that buggy for me. Couple notable bugs I had were not being able to get some psyker abilities on level-up due the game complaining that my Psyker rating is not +1 (I had +2), and on some occasions some extra turn abilities being skipped if the extra turn abilities get complex. Regarding the voice-over, or the lack of it, it is more of a plus for me that it has no voice-acting. Sure in a perfect world, I'd have both but as I have been recently played both Rogue Trader and BG3 I do notice that BG3 dialogue is more practical and less verbose, while Rogue Trader dialogue is more richer and interesting to me (plus you can read additional highlighted bits for more context and explanation to some lore). It is more of a tradeoff. Do you want voice-acting or more verbose dialogue? Due budget limitations it is not easy to have both, but then again it might not be impossible that Rogue Trader: Enhanced Edition (knowing Owlcat this will happen eventually) would include full voice acting and then best of both worlds have been achieved.
Thank you for the sub! Good points...I will agree that Rogue Trader's dialogue is definitely richer. I just think when Rogue Trader DID have a voice over, it was actually done really well! I'm not saying the whole game should've been voiced, but I think MORE than what they gave us would have been a nice addition. I've actually gone back and played it recently, and it's much less buggy than my first experience, so kudos to Owlcat!
I may be wrong cause it's all just terminology 😁 so I'm not like "calling you out" or anything weird like that lol...but I think there has been plenty of Warhammer RPGs and even tactical RPGs...but I think it's the first full on "CRPG" again it's all just terminology..fun video dude...and for not being a "AAA" game or whatever it doesn't feel AA at all it looks good it sounds good and it pkays smooth (but I started well after multiple patches butI think it's a excellent value it's the least jankiest game they have released and it's still getting supports and patches...this is ALOTTA game and i mean ALOTTA game haha and another big difference between this and BG3 is this uses a unique 100 sided dice system...it's a very fun game for ME but gaming is very subjective
I already beat it on normal. The last area/level and boss i had gotten to the point of cheesing the mechanics that i had dodge and armor on all my crew up over 100%
I mean... it has a romance arc where a woman gets flustered by your initial approach, and puts down a book on how she wants to be flirted with. And if you don't catch it the first time... she sneaks into your office and plants it. Somehow(honestly, impressive). And... she follows the script. Without mind games! So... it's got that going for it.
Every Owl game I played have some kind of management element which is shifty . Why cant they visualize what happening instead of describing it down in dialog text to make it long ass paragraphs in a Video Game!! We dun wanna hear about the guy we talking to is puking, we wanna see animation of him puking, or just dun mention it if u cant animate it
:Hold up , did you just say:" Im not good at games so thats why I decided to be a game reviewer." Is this a joke ? If not - care to elaborate ? I dont see the logic ^^ - 9:15
Lol yes, it's a joke. There is a running joke online that game journalists are terrible at video games (which has some merit) so I was just leaning into that. I do play A TON of video games, so I'm definitely not bad at them. However, I'm definitely not as good as some people you find on twitch or professional gamers. Hence the reason I decided to cover video games in a more journalistic way rather than stream some shooter to display my skill. Hope that makes sense. Thanks for watching!
Warhammer 40K Mechanics is also very closely allied to this game, and the framework on alot of the systems is very similar. But this is a far far superior game in terms of depth, and number of mechanics.
Yeah, and BG3 was a mediocre mod of Divinity: OS2. Rogue Trader has its own mechanics. BG3 has a lot of "pretty cutscenes", but the actual gameplay ("Barrelmancer is god, why play anything else?") falls far, far short of rogue trader. Never mind the faithful portrayal of its respective settings. If you really want to draw the BG3 comparisons, maybe you should look into how that game takes a big, steaming dump on the Forgotten Realms. Or maybe you should talk about the sheer amount of bloat and chaf in BG3...
I respect your opinion, but I have to disagree. The gameplay of BG3 does NOT fall short of Rogue Trader. I said this in my review but I understand that the comparison is not always fair as BG3 is a much bigger game and budget. But alas here we are. BG3 combat encounters are much more deliberate and meaningful. Not completely devoid of chaf, but much less chaf than Rogue Trader. One thing I forgot to mention in my review is Rogue Trader also has a huge lack of interesting combat arenas. There is practically no verticality or use of your environment. While BG3 is always putting you in interesting areas to fight where you can suplex enemies as an owlbear. You probably are much more of a hardcore audience, and that's okay! I'm glad you are enjoying Rogue Trader and it's a good game.
As someone who played BG3 then went back to Divinity Original Sin 2 soon after for fun, they are not comparable in many ways. They are far too different in style, rules, feel, game mechanics and over all tec improvement to be close enough to be called a mod. One can argue what one dose better over the other, I will hold my drawn out thoughts on that. To me it's like saying Pathfinder is a mod of DnD 5th edition. I agree to disagree and will only state now that I love both games and I bet I will love Rouge trader as well.
Overall I like what you’re trying to do but you’re so confidently wrong about so many things that it drives me a bit nuts as a viewer. Owl Cat is not unproven in any sense. Pathfinder WOTR is widely regarded as one of the best CRPGs ever and Kingmaker is widely praised as well. While Larian and Owl Cat have similar employee counts, they have WILDLY different funding and resources. Larian was flush with cash from DOSII and BG3 early access where Owl Cat is on a much tighter budget and time scale.
Thanks for the constructive feedback! I actually value these comments over some stupid personal attack. However I do think we are more on the same page than you think. I did make sure to mention that comparing BG3 and Rogue Trader isn't very fair, and that BG3 is a much larger project. As for Owlcat being unproven, I should have worded that differently: Unproven to a more mainstream audience. I know there is a smaller more hardcore audience that loves Pathfinder & Kingmaker.
Abelard, introduce this man to owl cat games
I finished the entire game recently and I can say that it IS worth your time IF you are a huge WH40K fan. For the rest of you, only if you really really like cRPGs, because this is not a system you are familiar with, and the world itself is quite... different, yeah, that's the word, from all the rest on the market. So it might not be your cup of tea.
But for me, a big WH40K nerd, it was amazing! Characters are some of the best in the genre - I am so sick and tired of characters that are established and more experienced than your MC (at least in the story setting) yet you can steer them and manipulate them with ease, and them starting on the same level as you.
In WH40K companions are actually people. They have preferences, ideas, thoughts and outlooks. You are not going to change an opinion of a 50 year old naval officer (Abelard) and have him see your point of view. And it wouldn't make sense otherwise. You are not going to sleep with everyone/anyone, characters have preferences... and while a randy smuggler might be down to go in the sack with you, thousand year old Aeldari who sees you a little better than an animal is certainly not going to let you even touch her. You'll spend the entire game cultivating relationship with her just to have it culminate in a meditation session (which is extremely intimate for Aeldari).
Also, they really drive the point that characters are not the same. While most of your crew is kinda semi-established with some experience (so it makes sense you start on the same power level), characters like Ulfar (Space Marine) are so OP compared to you that it does not make sense that he starts on Level 1. You actually get him 2/3 into the game, when his extreme power can naturally blend in with the rest of the group that has been developing over the course of the game.
Compared to BG3 characters that all want to bone with you just because you looked in their general direction, or that they start on Lvl1 while being leaders of Demonic armies or centuries old vampires... Rogue Trader characters feel like actual characters instead of caricatures. Which is funny, because WH40K should be a caricature setting.
The story itself is great and quite on point for WH40K universe. There are NO good guys here. You can make some good choices, but they rarely go the way you want them to. There is a reason why Imperium does things a certain way in this universe.
I have only two problems with the game:
1. Bugs in the last chapter. One or two side quests can't progress unless you use a mod that lets you trigger certain events, and the major bug that blocks your transition from Chapter 4 to Chapter 5. Game breaking actually, and also requires the use of the said mod.
2. Game is easy. If you read carefully during the character creation and spend some time building your character, even Unfair difficulty (the hardest) becomes kinda easy. But playing on Normal, and actually paying attention - after 1/3 of the game you will just flow through every single encounter with ease, not suffering a single hit. I don't want ballbusting RPG, but it would be nice if I took a hit or two for the last 70 hours of the game, or have a fight progress into a second round at least. I've seen people finishing the final boss, on Unfair difficulty, in 2 rounds, without losing any companions or having any trouble what so ever. And let me tell you, final boss has over 17.000 hp while your guys have between 100 and 200 usually. On normal, if the boss didn't have scripted segments, you could probably finish him in ~3 shots on Normal difficulty before they even make a single move. It is ridiculous.
Overall, I hope the bugs get fixed soon and that patches also bring a much needed balance to the fights. Because the rest of the game is f-ing stellar! I enjoyed every single second of it and after the first playthrough I started the second one.
I agree with most your points here. Definitely a good game. If you are a WH40K fan, then this is probably your DREAM game. Thanks for the thorough response and I love reading these types of comments to understand how others feel!
When someone says 50 bucks isn't a tripple A release.....
I am so ancient I still remember tripple A being 24 bucks
My NES games were $49.99 in the 1980s.. when were games $24?? The atari?
Well, Baldur Gates 3 had shit ton of money in their budget and 5+ years in beta access
Agreed, and I point this out in my video. But people will naturally make this comparison as BG3 is the new "standard".
@@TroySturdypeople are shallow.
At last! A review different from "10/10 with no / SOME issues"! I really thank you for taking into account all goods AND BADS during the ranking, because a good game with no issues and a good game with a ton of issues shouldn't have the same rank. 100% agree with all been said in the video so it's definitely a like.
Glad you enjoyed it! I have seen that a lot of reviews have been overwhelming positive as if they are almost afraid to point out it's big flaws. Just because we can point out issues doesn't mean we can't enjoy the game.
But 10/10 with technical problems is what it is.
With warhammer, specifically 40K, gaining popularity in the mainstream, I find that I now fear for the future quality of the franchise. I'm hoping the grimdark setting and fervent fan gatekeeping will prohibit any nefarious actors from manipulating the franchise, but we all know how it usually goes, lol
The quality of games is already bad so I don’t know what you’re talking about
@@CJP.-pq3kr I don't want Warhammer to get the Star Wars and Marvel treatment. 40K is rich in lore, soul and character. I don't want to see those things get stripped away in an effort to be inclusive. When you try to appeal to everyone, you end up appealing to no one.
Well, Rouge Trader get it well
This is one of those games where I wish they’d go back and give it the Disco Elysium, full voice-over, treatment.
I bought Rogue Trader on a friday evening, started playing it after dinner. Probably somewhere around 6-7 PM. By the time sunday night rolled around, and I went to bed, 8:30-9 PM (I wake up really early for work), I had already clocked nearly 30 hours in the game. I haven't had a title engross me as much as this one in years
Bros glow and editing and sense of humor plus lowkey on point. Subscribed and hit the bell
Wow, thank you so much!
I have been thinking about buying Rogue Trader and this review is helping me to decide. I have played many many CRPG games but am completely unfamiliar with Warhammer lore. I have played a little of Vermintide 2 but that is a totally different type of game than the CRPG genre. I am very familiar with Owlcat studio as I put over 400 plus hours into pathfinder wotr and love their games for the deep storytelling and choices with consequences. Thank you for the great review.
That is Olw Cats mo. They tend to drop very complex, story rich games with a very meh secondary mini game in it and with a ton of bugs. Bit they are good on updating the game and releasing content. Also will say, they are good at having actions have real effects on the plot. Like their last game had like 7 paths, each one felt natural and r en changed your home base. Like being a lich got diffrent treatment than being an angel. Guess we'll see if Rouge Trader does the same.
That makes sense. I am excited to see what OwlCat does with Rogue Trader.
tbh this is the first warhammer game i was interested in enough to keep playing vermintide always online looks like something id probably get bored with quickly and total war isnt my thing either.
as always owlcat does a good job getting me curious about companions only companion i didnt like was camilla
i think the grapghics are pretty enough especially for people playing on potato pcs loli think that probably why graphics arent too fancy
It's a good game, and a good first Warhammer RPG! I hope more RPGs come out in the Warhammer universe in the future.
It's not been easy for me. I just got a small ship and a few systems and i started building my empire as a self made rogue trader.
A fair review. I subscribed. I got this came a couple of months ago and after 60 or so hours it still isn't that buggy for me. Couple notable bugs I had were not being able to get some psyker abilities on level-up due the game complaining that my Psyker rating is not +1 (I had +2), and on some occasions some extra turn abilities being skipped if the extra turn abilities get complex.
Regarding the voice-over, or the lack of it, it is more of a plus for me that it has no voice-acting. Sure in a perfect world, I'd have both but as I have been recently played both Rogue Trader and BG3 I do notice that BG3 dialogue is more practical and less verbose, while Rogue Trader dialogue is more richer and interesting to me (plus you can read additional highlighted bits for more context and explanation to some lore). It is more of a tradeoff. Do you want voice-acting or more verbose dialogue? Due budget limitations it is not easy to have both, but then again it might not be impossible that Rogue Trader: Enhanced Edition (knowing Owlcat this will happen eventually) would include full voice acting and then best of both worlds have been achieved.
Thank you for the sub! Good points...I will agree that Rogue Trader's dialogue is definitely richer. I just think when Rogue Trader DID have a voice over, it was actually done really well! I'm not saying the whole game should've been voiced, but I think MORE than what they gave us would have been a nice addition. I've actually gone back and played it recently, and it's much less buggy than my first experience, so kudos to Owlcat!
How is BG3 tripple A, but not Rogue Trader if the companies equally big? I wonder how the budget ooked. BG3 I think did not have a super budget.
I may be wrong cause it's all just terminology 😁 so I'm not like "calling you out" or anything weird like that lol...but I think there has been plenty of Warhammer RPGs and even tactical RPGs...but I think it's the first full on "CRPG" again it's all just terminology..fun video dude...and for not being a "AAA" game or whatever it doesn't feel AA at all it looks good it sounds good and it pkays smooth (but I started well after multiple patches butI think it's a excellent value it's the least jankiest game they have released and it's still getting supports and patches...this is ALOTTA game and i mean ALOTTA game haha and another big difference between this and BG3 is this uses a unique 100 sided dice system...it's a very fun game for ME but gaming is very subjective
I already beat it on normal. The last area/level and boss i had gotten to the point of cheesing the mechanics that i had dodge and armor on all my crew up over 100%
I mean... it has a romance arc where a woman gets flustered by your initial approach, and puts down a book on how she wants to be flirted with. And if you don't catch it the first time... she sneaks into your office and plants it. Somehow(honestly, impressive). And... she follows the script. Without mind games! So... it's got that going for it.
Every Owl game I played have some kind of management element which is shifty .
Why cant they visualize what happening instead of describing it down in dialog text to make it long ass paragraphs in a Video Game!! We dun wanna hear about the guy we talking to is puking, we wanna see animation of him puking, or just dun mention it if u cant animate it
They really should have just gone for full voice acting ain’t nobody gonna read a 800,000 page novel in game they want to play it
:Hold up , did you just say:" Im not good at games so thats why I decided to be a game reviewer."
Is this a joke ? If not - care to elaborate ? I dont see the logic ^^ - 9:15
Lol yes, it's a joke. There is a running joke online that game journalists are terrible at video games (which has some merit) so I was just leaning into that.
I do play A TON of video games, so I'm definitely not bad at them. However, I'm definitely not as good as some people you find on twitch or professional gamers. Hence the reason I decided to cover video games in a more journalistic way rather than stream some shooter to display my skill.
Hope that makes sense. Thanks for watching!
Warhammer 40K Mechanics is also very closely allied to this game, and the framework on alot of the systems is very similar. But this is a far far superior game in terms of depth, and number of mechanics.
I love Forhammer Warty K
Warhammer online MMO died long time ago.
I used to play on a public server that got set up after the official shut down
@@andrewfenbit5409 aye. I just wanted to point out, that maybe commercially the WH 40k CRPG is not that viable.
@@tankrabbit534 MMO is not. Because every one already get tired from MMO. Single player CRPG - is more then desirable
very nice intro lol
Loving it, but confused to hell
Yeah, and BG3 was a mediocre mod of Divinity: OS2. Rogue Trader has its own mechanics. BG3 has a lot of "pretty cutscenes", but the actual gameplay ("Barrelmancer is god, why play anything else?") falls far, far short of rogue trader. Never mind the faithful portrayal of its respective settings. If you really want to draw the BG3 comparisons, maybe you should look into how that game takes a big, steaming dump on the Forgotten Realms. Or maybe you should talk about the sheer amount of bloat and chaf in BG3...
I respect your opinion, but I have to disagree. The gameplay of BG3 does NOT fall short of Rogue Trader. I said this in my review but I understand that the comparison is not always fair as BG3 is a much bigger game and budget. But alas here we are.
BG3 combat encounters are much more deliberate and meaningful. Not completely devoid of chaf, but much less chaf than Rogue Trader. One thing I forgot to mention in my review is Rogue Trader also has a huge lack of interesting combat arenas. There is practically no verticality or use of your environment. While BG3 is always putting you in interesting areas to fight where you can suplex enemies as an owlbear.
You probably are much more of a hardcore audience, and that's okay! I'm glad you are enjoying Rogue Trader and it's a good game.
As someone who played BG3 then went back to Divinity Original Sin 2 soon after for fun, they are not comparable in many ways. They are far too different in style, rules, feel, game mechanics and over all tec improvement to be close enough to be called a mod. One can argue what one dose better over the other, I will hold my drawn out thoughts on that. To me it's like saying Pathfinder is a mod of DnD 5th edition. I agree to disagree and will only state now that I love both games and I bet I will love Rouge trader as well.
Overall I like what you’re trying to do but you’re so confidently wrong about so many things that it drives me a bit nuts as a viewer.
Owl Cat is not unproven in any sense. Pathfinder WOTR is widely regarded as one of the best CRPGs ever and Kingmaker is widely praised as well.
While Larian and Owl Cat have similar employee counts, they have WILDLY different funding and resources. Larian was flush with cash from DOSII and BG3 early access where Owl Cat is on a much tighter budget and time scale.
Thanks for the constructive feedback! I actually value these comments over some stupid personal attack. However I do think we are more on the same page than you think. I did make sure to mention that comparing BG3 and Rogue Trader isn't very fair, and that BG3 is a much larger project. As for Owlcat being unproven, I should have worded that differently: Unproven to a more mainstream audience. I know there is a smaller more hardcore audience that loves Pathfinder & Kingmaker.