Creators of the successful role-playing game for Warhammer 40,000 on Steam want to market their new game, but even fans are cautious

After Rogue Trader, developer Owlcat is now planning Dark Heresy, the next role-playing game set in Warhammer 40,000 for PC (Steam, Epic, GOG), PS5, and Xbox. Fans of the predecessor are now encouraged to pre-order, but it’s going rather mediocre.

What kind of game is this?

• Dark Heresy will be the new role-playing game for Warhammer 40,000. It is a classic cRPG with turn-based combat, a lot of story, and various companions.
• In Dark Heresy, you belong to the members of the Inquisition. There are no details on the story yet, only that you are to investigate a stellar anomaly and will apparently face Chaos Space Marines of the Night Lords.
• The game will be released for both PC and consoles. The predecessor already had native co-op, so it seems likely that Dark Heresy will also offer multiplayer. A release date for Dark Heresy is still pending.

That’s why fans are cautious: Owlcat has now tried to generate some hype on Reddit and encourage potential players to pre-order. The post is not particularly subtle: Heresy is spreading, and if you don’t pre-order Dark Heresy, it will remain that way. Neither the Inquisition nor the Emperor tolerate that.

The aggressive tone is surprisingly well received; users feel it fits exactly into the dark, fascist world of Warhammer 40,000. Nevertheless, in over 180 comments, most fans agree that they will not pre-order.

Digital pre-orders have often been criticized, but particularly in recent years, gamers have developed a certain aversion to preorders. The opinion: Too many games have been released unfinished or poorly. This is not (only) true for Owlcat, but in general. Additionally, there is too little known about Dark Heresy. There is no release date, no gameplay, too many uncertainties.

In the thread, it is mentioned that they really want to support, buy, and play Dark Heresy – but only after the release when they can be sure that it is good. After all, Owlcat has a certain history with releases.

Owlcat delivers excellent games if you are patient

The developers have published three major role-playing games that all have strong reviews:

• Pathfinder: Kingmaker (77% positive)
• Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous (83% positive)
• and Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader (84% positive)

However, each of these games had significant bugs at release, some of which were merely annoying while others could impede gameplay. Each game had a better release than its predecessors, but generally, it has always taken several patches before the games were really stable – sometimes this only happened with the ‘Enhanced’ edition.

However, Owlcat is also working to polish and make the games playable. They will be supplied with new content over the years. Rogue Trader, for example, will receive its second DLC Lex Imperialis on June 24, 2025, in which you will get an Adeptus Arbites as a new companion.

Whether Dark Heresy will join the games with a bumpy start remains to be seen. However, the trend is clearly moving towards more stable releases from Owlcat. And at least Rogue Trader is already one of the best games if you want to dive into the world of Warhammer 40,000.