Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader Review (Owl376)
This is a tough one
Owlcat got mostly everything right except for two things in my opinion...
Negatives:
1. Bugs. There are many, not many game breaking, but frequent small to medium bugs. They range from quest issues, to visual bugs. It gets very annoying, and makes you feel like you are playtesting a final build, not a finished product. It could be worse though. Ive heard this is typical of Owlcat games on release.
2. Combat. Its not all bad, but the "sub classes" so to speak are made up of uber specific abilities that are very complicated, and require a very specific set of events to happen in combat to proc (think: "if x ability is active on an enemy, and y characters are within z range, gain ____ ability to at %armour penetration" like yah thats never gonna happen). Honestly, it feels like a waste of time to try to make your own build, Especially when combat talents and character abilities like persuasion are put in the same pool, so you have to pick between roleplaying, or combat. If you dont build your character specifically with this in mind at the start, the game can be frustrating. There are some very sharp difficulty curves.
But how does combat feel? Fine, but its slow. So slow. One combat encounter, especially in the early acts and levels, can easily take 20-30 minutes. Sometimes you are thrust into another one right after, and honestly its exhausting. I wish there were more verbal ways to deal with conflict instead. If you dont like the combat mechanics, you may have a tough time with the game, since it is the largest part imo. This sort of extends to void combat, but there is a lot less going on ability wise, so I dont really have much bad to say about it, especially since its so easy to avoid.
The planet/resource system also feels a little shallow, and very easy to forget about. Its got lots of potential, I just wish it was explored a little more.
While the armour is really cool, there isnt as much variety as I would like. I believe there is currently one suit of "power armour" that your character (not space marine or the sister) can wear. For a 40k game, thats a little disappointing. In general, there is a lack of more cool armour in a universe with so much cool armour. Dont get me wrong, there are some really cool pieces in this game, but not enough of the right things. My rogue trader should be able to get his hands on some sick power armour, or my inquisitor friend should have access to it. Especially since there is an inquisitor character in the game with modelled power armour more akin to the inquisitor video game
Finally, many have voiced their complaints about the skill checks. Some are ludicrously unforgiving if you've build your character a certain way, which is further exacerbated by the ability level up system I mentioned before.
Positives:
Everything else really, art direction, music, story, characters are all on point for a 40k game. If you are a 40k fan, you will enjoy the vast majority of this game. There is a clear attention to detail in the environment and world building with some specific lore tidbits that show a lot of care from the devs, which is much appreciated. And if you are new, the encyclopedia and highlighted terms which you can hover over to get a quick description when they appear in dialogue, make it really easy for players unfamiliar with the universe to understand what people are talking about. Its a great touch. The character models, armour peices, weapons are all very accurate and fun to collect.
Conclusion:
This is a solid entry to the 40k video game catalogue. Where the combat/balancing, performance and certain mechanics fall short, everything else succeeds to me. If you are a 40k fan, this is probably going to be a 7-8/10, unless you are super critical about everything. If you are new to the universe, this could feel more like a 6-6.5/10.