Last week, I rolled credits on Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader, which at over 200 hours in I can honestly say is not only one of the best CRPGs I’ve ever played — it’s simply one of the best video games I’ve played in general.
I went in with only the most basic surface-level knowledge of Warhammer 40K as a universe, and have, due to Rogue Trader, found myself now buying books, minifigs, and taking painting courses to fully immerse myself into the decades-long tradition.
Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader is on Xbox and PC, as well as Game Pass, and is arguably one of the best ways one can be introduced to the incredibly deep and dark lore of one of fantasy’s most celebrated franchises. I played this game across cloud, PC, and Xbox consoles with Xbox Play Anywhere, and haven’t been this deeply hooked on a game since the days of Mass Effect.
To that end, we recently caught up with Owlcat Games’ Antaoly Shestov, exec producer, and Andrey Tsvetkov, head of publishing, to learn more about WH40K Rogue Trader, the next game, Dark Heresy, and also learn more about the studio’s approach to Game Pass.
Owlcat on its WH40K: Rogue Trader learnings
In Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader, you play as one of the Imperium’s frontier explorers, whose ancient charge gives them some leeway to “bend” laws for the “good” of humanity. It’s a broad canvas for exploring the WH40K universe, as the adventures you’ll get up to as the Rogue Trader sees you touch various corners of the lore.
I found the game’s approach to storytelling to be absolutely phenomenal, with player choice absolutely core to the experience. WH40K is as dark as they come as a universe, whose ultraviolence and dystopic bleakness has inspired generations of creators across gaming and other mediums.
I asked Executive Producer Anatoly Shestov if the next title, Dark Heresy, would share Rogue Trader’s affinity for onboarding new players into the medium. “Absolutely,” Shestov explains. “From the very first days, Rogue Trader was made with the main idea ‘let’s share with the world why we love Warhammer.’ And we definitely will continue to.”
Indeed, Rogue Trader was exemplary at explaining Warhammer 40K lore, going beyond even titles like Space Marine 2, allowing players to highlight key terms to learn added context.
As great as Rogue Trader is as an CRPG, it’s hard to overlook some of its rough edges, especially in the post-Baldur’s Gate 3 universe. Rogue Trader’s combat animations are often repetitive and stiff, re-using the same character motions for various abilities. I asked the team at Owlcat what some of their key learnings from Rogue Trader were, heading into Dark Heresy. Anatoly Shestov was candid.
“Companions should come rather earlier, than later. There’s no easy way to allow 2×2 creature play inside areas not made for it, anything that can be stacked up to infinity definitely will be.”
Shestov refers to some of the “balance” issues Rogue Trader faced here. One companion later in the game, the large Space Wolf Ulfar, took up a 2×2 grid on the gameplay area. This led to pathing issues in some situations. Owlcat’s RPG is also definitively very “breakable,” where certain passives and stats can make characters monstrously powerful, even on higher difficulties, to the point of undermining key boss fights and moments.
“For Dark Heresy, we’ve decided not to make it a simple evolution, with finetuning and adding new elements upon the old ones. No — instead, we’ve rebuilt lots of things from scratch. Some of these things will be obvious at first glance. Some will touch on the animation’s subject. Overall, you can expect DH to have more components for the player expressing himself, be it in combat, in inventory, in a cutscene, or in a dialogue.
The darkest heresy cometh
Dark Heresy is in development now for consoles and PC, despite the fact Owlcat is also committed to another two expansions for Rogue Trader, the first two of which added dozens of gameplay already.
Rogue Trader was indeed a monstrously long game, with the first two expansions I clocked in 200 hours for my first run, although I did try to do literally everything. For Dark Heresy, though, Owlcat wants to condense things down a bit.
“There will be less length and more width, more reactivity, and more variety of interactions,” Anatoly Shestov explains. “Dark Heresy will focus on Calixis, Scintilla, Tyrantine Cabal — we’ve already narrowed down things we want to tell to the point. Internally, we feel it will focus on game narrative and player experience rather than limit us.”
“In Rogue Trader, we’ve tried to provide every ideology with its own “right” way to deal with the Koronus, to deal within Koronus. In Dark Heresy, your choices will aim not to express your personal beliefs but rather to save a particular part of Humanity against inevitable horrific doom and despair. Horrific and desperate ways, of course.”
I asked to what extent Dark Heresy will be similar to Rogue Trader, and whether or not the general gameplay loop and explorative elements follow the same trajectory. “Not precisely,” says Sheshtov.
“There are many changes in every all of Dark Heresy’s game components,” Shestov continues. “Game mechanics are no exception. There will be archetypes, origins, and backgrounds. Some of them will share common themes, even names, with Rogue Trader’s. But even then, they will behave in a new way. And of course, there will be brand new archetypes.”
“The combat will remain turn-based, yes. But there will be significant changes in the momentum system, covers and line-of-sight systems, bursts and AOE attacks, and much more.”
“Will it look like something familiar? Yes. Will it give the same user experience, evolve around the same cognitive processes? No. The exploration goes even further. There won’t be a full sector to discover. There won’t be space battles this time. But a whole new layer of things will surround you on a ground level.”
“As an Inquisitor, an entirely new investigation system is needed to gather, interpret, and analyze these things, to make conclusions based on the results, and to make a verdict. Even one that doesn’t align with anything being found. And Guncutter. There will be a Guncutter.”
The Inquisition is a core pillar of Warhammer 40K’s human Imperium faction. The Inquisition is charged with dealing with some of humanity’s darker threats, be it heretical cults from within, seditious traitors to the Emperor, xenos alien incursions, or Chaos daemons themselves. The Inquisition is a shadowy, and uncompromising faction within the canon, and it has often been susceptible to corruption in its own right. Dealing with Chaos daemons on a regular basis is enough to drive even the most faithful to insanity.
Exploring these themes, and player choice, was key in Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader, whose branching narratives could very wildly change the fate of an entire region of the galaxy. It sounds like Dark Heresy will continue the tradition.
“Reactivity is one of the main pillars in our games,” Shestov explains. “We love to see how the world around the players reacts to their choices and changes significantly. Providing you with more options to react to particular things is the goal. And not just that — it is the main reason we, as a studio, make the games we are known for. And we, as players, enjoy these kinds of games ourselves.
We definitely will continue to push choices and reactivity in every game we create, especially in Dark Heresy. The alignment system, as part of the overall reactivity pillar, will be in place and will work in conjunction with classical inquisitorial ideologies, such as those of radicals or puritans.”
Owlcat’s (likely glorious) future
The future is bright for Owlcat Games, who during Summer Game Fest 2025 this year, revealed The Expanse: Osiris Reborn. Based on the mega-popular sci-fi franchise, The Expanse looks like the Mass Effect successor we’ve all been waiting for. But what of Owlcat’s strong CRPG tradition, across The Pathfinder and Warhammer 40K universes? Not to worry, says Anatoly Shestov.
“Here at Owlcat, decisions about new projects are made slightly differently. The main, unskippable criteria for something new to happen is a highly passionate group of high-skilled professionals ready to do anything for ‘this particular game idea’ to happen,” he explains. “And you can be sure there are more than enough highly passionate, high-skilled hardcore CRPG fans in here.”
Given that I began my journey with Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader in Xbox Game Pass, I wanted to gauge Owlcat’s thoughts about the service, given that there has been some controversy with Xbox Game Pass as a business model in the wider industry.
Owlcat’s director of publishing, Andrey Tsvetkov, seemed happy with the inclusion. “We are very pleased with the game’s performance on Game Pass,” Tsvetkov explains. “It has introduced many new players to Rogue Trader who may not have paid attention to the title otherwise. While we cannot share the exact numbers, the level of engagement for players who have tried the game via a Game Pass subscription is quite significant.”
Owlcat Games is a relatively young studio, set for its 10-year anniversary in 2026. Despite this, the rapidity of their ascent to the top of the RPG pile, at least my view, has been incredibly impressive. I cannot recommend Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader enough if you’re someone who enjoys RPGs with dark edges and truly meaningful choices and consequences. Owlcat’s passion shines through in every corner of the game, and it bodes incredibly well for The Expanse and Dark Heresy.
A huge thank you to Owlcat for fielding our questions.