To cap off a memorable 2023 for RPG fans, Owlcat Games (Pathfinder: Kingmaker and Wrath of the Righteous) released Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader, the first-ever cRPG based on the beloved setting invented by Games Workshop, last December.
The game earned an 8 out of 10 score in Wccftech’s review. Author Francesco Deo Meo wrote:
Despite not being a hardcore fan of the setting, Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader managed to capture my attention right from the get-go, resulting in an enjoyable experience for the over 50 hours I spent with it. While the game by Owlcat doesn’t have the wide appeal of Baldur’s Gate 3, it is a solid cRPG that is just a step away from being yet another must-buy title of 2023, mostly due to the lack of polish and some unenjoyable mechanics such as space combat.
Six months later, we’ve interviewed Owlcat Executive Producer Anatoly Shestov to discuss the game’s ongoing support (to clean up some of that lack of polish mentioned in our review summary) and the recently announced Void Shadows DLC, which is set to add 15 hours of new story content, a new romanceable companion, and several new features when it launches on August 8. Scroll below for the full transcript of our conversation.
Can you talk about the fans’ reception and the commercial sales of Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader so far?
Well, we delivered the game to the players in December, and the overall reception was quite positive. We were shocked by the positive sentiment that the player base shared with us. Of course, some people were unhappy with our choices with the companions, story decisions, and other stuff. But overall, we were praised for the best depiction of the Warhammer setting ever, not just in CRPG. And the praises were there, and they were deserved.
We definitely did not do everything that we wanted to do. That’s why we continued to support the game, not just with bug fixing but with the overall improvement of performance, quality of life, and the different nuances of the game. By this time, we have already delivered around 10 patches, each targeting different sections of the game.
We’re almost there to have the game we want to play ourselves, want to play more, want to replay with different play styles. For example, with the last patch, we delivered the certification of Steam Deck support. It was not just for the player base, for the audience. We just felt that the controls’ experience could be better in our game, that it’s not so comfortable to dig through text, it’s not so comfortable to pick options, so we decided to pursue this not because of the value but because of our internal desire to make this aspect of the game better and based on the players’ reception, based on our feedback and internal experience, we feel like we’re there on this particular part.
A bit later, we will deliver a huge 1.2 patch to the player base with lots of additional balance tweaks and changes because players found ways to break our game through a bunch of bugs. They found such powerful combinations that they could defeat bosses in one turn, so we wanted to fix this. On the other hand, we wanted to improve those not-so-popular and less-than-effective builds.
Overall, we spent a lot of time on this particular thing and lots of small aspects of the game. For example, the user interface wasn’t so nice and stylish and bright, so we tweaked lots of things. Overall, the interaction with every UI element of the game should feel smoother and easier. Our main UI art developer was given the freedom to play himself and fix the things that he felt were not as perfect as he wanted them to be.
Many things we are approaching at this particular moment revolve around our internal experience of playing Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader and adjusting it to feel better. That’s basically how we perceive what we’re doing right now. Aside from the DLCs that are in the process of being made, we just make sure that every part of the game will see some additional portion of love, attention, and care from the developers.
You mentioned Improving the interface. Does that include improving the controller UI specifically?
Yeah, the overall scheme of interaction with the game was tuned. Most of the annoying bugs were fixed, and playing the game via controller now should feel better. I’m not saying it’s ideal, but we made a real effort to improve it.
When do you think this patch will go live?
I won’t promise you any precise date, but yeah, the patch is scheduled for this Summer. We will definitely make an appropriate communication to the community closer to the release of this patch.
The recent announcement was about the first Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader DLC, Void Shadows. Can you talk about that and what you’re going to add to the game with this DLC?
Sure. Our overall desire to work within the Warhammer universe is the same. It’s a desire to tell stories about things that happen there aside from the battlefield itself. Void Shadows, our DLC, is focused on the Genestealer Cult and the Death Cult Assassins. This is our way of discussing things that have happened before and after battles. Whenever you see the actual squadrons and the heavy army taking their place, there is some legwork prior to that. Some preparations are made for it, and these preparations affect the lives of the people, how different parts of the setting react to it, how they protect from it, or how they try to facilitate it.
It’s an interesting, fruitful field for telling meaningful stories. That’s why we decided to approach it as the first DLC. Of course, it allows us to tell more about the Voidship, more about the life and the people in it, and how it ties the main character with the others. One of the particular challenges was not to make things one-dimensional. Like, this is 100 percent enemies, this is 100 percent friends. Just, like, take your friends and kill your enemies. It’s not how we tell stories here at Owlcat. We aim to at least point to the different sides and different perceptions of the events. What we came up with is this kinda emotional and deep narrative.
Mechanics-wise, there will be a new first-tier career and a second-tier career. One will revolve around lots of blade attacks. The second will revolve around different kinds of damage-over-time effects and manipulation with them. We are also introducing a new companion, Kibellah, a Death Cult Assassin built upon these two careers. With Void Shadows, we are also adding new layers of ship customization and several interesting custom-made space battles. And, of course, lots of regular exploration battles.
I also read that there will be some new crew members and officers.
Yeah. To tell the story of the Voidship is to tell the story of the people who live there. We can’t just add some random people on the lower decks. We are introducing new officers. There will be different departments of the ship that are not in a good relationship with each other, and the struggle between them will be an important part of the story. I don’t want to spoil the fun beforehand, though.
I wanted to ask if the Void Shadows story takes place after the main Warhammer 40K Rogue Trader campaign, or is it supposed to occur sometime in the middle of it?
It’s a part of the main story. It’s integrated into the main story, so it’s not like a completely separate instance that you’re playing as a separate entity. No, it’s an addition to the regular story, to the main part of Rogue Trader. The story will happen mostly in the second and fourth chapters of the game.
Any player who has already played the campaign will be able to just continue his own play and receive all the DLC content, while a new player will experience a more polished, more, more organic, I guess, more organic story of the Koronus Expanse itself. That’s our vision of the DLCs for Warhammer 40K Rogue Trader. They won’t be separate entities but an organic evolution of the initial story, with it branching out for the different aspects of the world and the setting.
You mentioned some improvements to the space battles. Can you speak to that as well?
There are lots of bug fixes, new types of equipment, new enemies, new types of space battles, and more. We are not introducing the option to skip the space battles. If you are inside one, you need to play it, but they are not mandatory at all. We also feel that we crafted quite interesting space battle encounters for this particular DLC.
They’ve got a unique feeling inside them, and there are even some immersive story elements inside them, so I strongly recommend anyone who didn’t like the space battles to give it one more try, and the ones who do, just play through them. It will be worth it.
Actually, earlier this morning, I was browsing the Rogue Trader subreddit. Someone had just written that they liked your game’s ship battles more than those of an actual strategy game like Battlefleet Gothic: Armada.
That’s a super game. There are lots of fans of that game on our team. We didn’t try to copy/paste it. We were trying to grasp the cornerstone feelings of it and to make them viable in a CRPG. What we ultimately came up with is some kind of spice. Not everyone likes it, but the ones who do like it really like it.
We try to aim at such things. We don’t aim to create things that everyone will like. We don’t do every part of the game for everyone. We just try to find such a proportion of things that any person, any player, will find something for themselves. Whenever some users say, ‘We like your narrative, but we don’t like your battles,’ or vice-versa, that’s fine for us. We never thought 100% of our game would appeal to 100% of the audience, not just because it’s impossible but also because we don’t like compromises.
You’ll release a free update alongside the Void Shadows DLC, correct?
Sure.
Can you share its main features?
It’s balancing, quality of life improvements, bug fixes, and an overhaul of the abilities and items. There’s also some additional polish. Some areas will receive fully updated lighting, and others will get huge changes to AI interactions.
Would you consider releasing more voiced dialogues in the future, or is it just too expensive?
That would be very expensive, not just because of the voiceover itself but also because we have over one million words in Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader. To fully integrate new voiceovers would be tough. We already added some new voiceover throughout free patches, though, and we are considering the possibility of adding more. Of course, the DLCs will have their own new voiced dialogues.
Owlcat isn’t just busy with Rogue Trader, as you’ve also just released A Dance of Masks, the final DLC for Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous. That RPG received five DLCs in total. Is that the same amount you’re planning for Rogue Trader?
There’s no such thing as a desired set number of DLCs. We’d like to add more stories, though. As long as we see the audience’s support, we’ll deliver new Rogue Trader content. If, at any time, this support should diminish, we would reconsider our options as a business. For now, I don’t see any signs of Owlcat stopping support for the game.
One last question. I noticed that you released Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous on Nintendo Switch via cloud. Is there a chance you’d do the same with Rogue Trader?
It’s too early to talk about the game coming to other platforms than those where it is already available. However, we are open to any option to make the game available to other audiences. If we find a solid business plan, we’ll definitely pursue it. For now, we’re just unsure if there is one.
Is there anything else you’d like to say to the Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader community?
We delivered the game with way more bugs than we should have, and we worked our asses off as humanly possible to fix that. So, we wanted to take this opportunity to thank everyone in the community who supported us from the get-go. It means the world to us.
For everyone who has wondered, ‘Is it time to play the game yet?’ I think it’s definitely time now. If you still feel something is missing, go to our Discord, Twitter/X, Reddit, or whatever, and let us know. We will keep trying to improve it.
Thank you for your time.
