Rogue Trader (Video Game)
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"What will your fate be? One of Service? Of Glory? Of Heresy?
One can only hope it will be better than mine."
- – Your predecessor, before she died.
Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader is an upcoming video game based on the Fantasy Flight RPG of the same name. It's being developed by Owlcat Games, who you might know as the guys behind the Pathfinder CRPGs Kingmaker and Wrath of the Righteous.
You play as the Rogue Trader, and it is your task to rebuild and expand your dynasty's trade empire, become obscenely rich, and save the Koronus Expanse from the Warpstorm Trilogy the growing dangers which threaten to undo all the Imperium has built within it. Just make sure you keep the various factions and power brokers of Footfall off your back while you do so, or they'll take more than just a cut of the profits; they'll take your life!
Setting
Set sometime during the Time of Ending, long after the era of the original RPG, Rogue Trader takes place in the backwater frontier sector known as the Koronus Expanse. One of a myriad of prospective heirs in the von Valancia dynasty, you are thrust into the position of rogue trader after the death of your predecessor during a collision of Chaos and Dark Eldar plots that sees an entire star system vanish and your dynasty's fortunes undermined. While not exactly penniless, you start off with most of your productive assets lost somewhere in the unrest sweeping the Koronus Expanse and you're forced to start working your way back into the upper echelons of the Koronid economy.
Little mention is made of the Calixis Sector aside from the report that almost no ship has traversed The Maw in several years, and those that did reported time dilations of at least a few decades. Aspyce Chorda's daughter and heir will be at least one of your main competitors, and old Calligos Winterscale has seemingly secured the position of his dynasty within the Expanse. Together, the Chorda, von Valancia, and Winterscale dynasties are the most prominent and powerful of the Rogue Traders operating in the Expanse and balancing your interests with theirs will be one of the main conflicts in the game. Before you can do that, though, you'll need for find your interests: warp storms have swept much of the Koronus Expanse, and all your Navigator charts have been rendered useless as existing warp channels have closed or been hidden. It's up to you to plot new routes through the storm's and reopen trade between Footfall, the de facto hub location since all the major faction merchants are there, and your dynasty's agri- and forgeworlds to keep things from going completely belly-up (at least in Act 2).
Worlds
- Footfall: A wretched hive of scum and villainy, Footfall squats at the entrance to The Maw, the sole gateway (aside from the Fifth Station of Passage) to the wider Imperium. Nominally ruled by Rogue Traders and administered by the Liege of Footfall in their name, in practice it is a constantly shifting nest of viperous gangs, criminal syndicates, Ecclesiarchal crusaders, and merchant combines who jockey for power and scarce resources amongst its asteroid stations. Since all the major game faction merchants are based on Footfall, it seems to be the in-game hub world even if it's actually located in the corner of the map and only has a few warp routes leading from it to other systems.
- Janus: An agriworld founded in the Koronus Expanse by the von Valancia dynasty, Janus is a major supplier of foodstuffs to other settlements in the Expanse. Unfortunately, its system defences have been badly neglected and the world is currently interdicted by xenos raiders.
- Kiava Gamma: The core industrial world of the von Valancia dynasty, it is currently being converted into a daemon forge by its traitorous Fabricator and will need to be cleansed and reclaimed by the Rogue Trader before they can rebuild their dynasty's economic fortunes.
Gameplay
Like most isometric RPGs you may be familiar with (of the Bioware school), you and a party of quirky characters walk around massive, highly-detailed 3D environments holding down the Tab key looking for highlighted boxes to steal shit from and opening dialogue trees with named NPCs until you get interrupted by a random enemy encounter and/or walk over a trap that kills 3 of your party members. There's nothing too innovative here aside from a horrible, HORRIBLE inventory UI and a really clunky implementation of the Profit Factor mechanic from the original RPG this is based on. You will pick up hundreds of generic autopistols, flak vests, and axes that you must manually pack into cargo crates for later resale to various merchants, or else carry them in your character inventory if you hope to use them at some point. The game will refer to all items, including plot-important key items, pointless lore notes, literal garbage you looted from the homeless encampment in the sewers, etc. as "Trophies" and remind you to pick up anything you might have thrown away whenever you leave an area.
Classes
Skills
Skill tests are resolved exactly like in the original RPG: Roll a d100 under a number based on your character's skill level in their relevant attribute and with the appropriate DC modifiers applied. You can equip gear to increase your character's skill points and raise your chance of success, but right now there don't seem to be skill mastery levels, which makes it a lot harder to reliably succeed even basic tasks; for example, there are many opportunities for small Lore (subject) tests in various areas, but you will probably fail more than half of them at any given time since the player character's ability scores start around 35-40 and additional equipment is typically a +5 bonus to a single skill. In the original Rogue Trader RPG, you could spend XP at each rank up to gain Skill Mastery in specific skills, giving up to a +20 bonus to that skill and demonstrating your character's focused development, but so far in the alpha it seems that all ranking up does is give you additional abilities to use in combat.
Skills are used in various ways: disabling traps, persuading/coercing NPCs, opening hidden pathways through the use of small explosives, etc. Failure usually means the character using the skill takes damage or some aspect of the dialogue path is locked away. Occasionally, missing out on that dialogue will put the player at a severe disadvantage in a future combat encounter. Thankfully, the game will automatically pick the character with the highest relevant skill among your selected party members if you click on something that requires a skill check: so if you've got Pasqal in your party and a you click on an object require a Tech-Use test, the game will send Pasqal over to deal with it. Unfortunately, the game isn't really good at predicting the odds for you and will display very generic "chances" when you hover over a test indicating who will take the taste and some percentage number that absolutely does not indicate chance of success. Unlike older games, failure also prevents other members of your party from retrying the skill test; if you roll 100 on a tech-use test, you won't ever be able to unlock the hidden path leading to the +5 Persuasion monocle.
Combat
The combat is turn-based, based on the d100 system used in the FFG tabletop RPG. Unlike Owlcat's other games, there isn't an option for Real Time with Pause.
The combat UI is terrible.
There are too many abilities, since Owlcat decided that levelling means adding more combat abilities and only combat abilities, leading to UI bloat and leaving most characters feeling very generic.
Exploration
Companions
Abelard: Rogue Traders are very busy people, who don't have all the time in the world to do boring stuff like "bookkeeping" and "risk management". So, these duties fall to your Seneschal, Abelard. He's been serving your family line for a long time, and is staunchly loyal to the trade empire he helped establish. So, uh, don't go and fuck it up.
Argenta: a Sister of Battle, a fierce warrior specialising in ranged weapons and flamers.
Idira: a non-sanctioned (not very legal) psyker, an advisor to your predecessor, also a powerful caster with various support and damage abilities.
Heinrix: an Interrogator, a representative of the Inquisition. Follows his own agenda. In combat he is a strong melee fighter and a psyker, as well, but less powerful and more focused on support than Idira.
Pasqal: a Tech-Priest, representative of the Adeptus Mechanicus. In combat, he is a durable tank capable of many buffing abilities and strong melee attacks, and has a tendency to get stupidly high initiative when combat starts.
Cassia: a Navigator, an officer crucial for space navigation. In ground combat she’s able to shoot and give additional moves and attacks to other characters, as well as use her Third Eye to release a huge cone of raw warp energy, stunning and damaging the enemies in a large area. The Aerie/Tali'Zorah/Meryl/Sirin of the game.
Jae Heydari: A highly respected businesswoman from footfall who is both very cunning and ambitious. Seeks to ally with the rogue trader to deter her rivals, but also desires vast power and riches. You'll either love her or hate her.
Yrliet Lanaevyss: A proud Aeldari ranger who walks the path of the outcast to escape the constraints of craftworld society. Romanceable