// PC GAMER — GAMING
One day Owlcat will make an RPG that's perfect out of the box, but 3 years after launch, it's time to get disgustingly into Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader
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I'm not sure whether to feel sheepish or smug that I exclusively come to Owlcat games late. On the one hand, I feel like a fairweather fan of this underrated RPG powerhouse, one whose output and ambition is honestly kind of scary.
But on the other hand: Owlcat has yet to have a single smooth launch. PCG weekend editor Jody Macgregor gave Rogue Trader a 59% in his review at launch in December, 2023, and I don't blame him one bit.
I hated this game when I tried the beta that fall. The fun unfamiliarity of being a 40K newcomer was outmatched by the frustrating unfamiliarity of a complicated new RPG system—Rogue Trader is at least as intricate as Pathfinder, but without any built-in, D&D-derived muscle memory. The fact that "hit points" are called "wounds" made me feel indignant in a way I struggle to describe. You're not special, stop calling them that!
But perhaps Rogue Trader has earned its silly little proper nouns by now. With the release of its Infinite Museion DLC, I decided to finally dive back in and give it the second chance I'd always planned to, just like Jody did last year.
Similar to Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous and Kingmaker before it, Rogue Trader has grown into an all-timer RPG. It's also hit one of my main quality indicators for the genre: I'm so obsessed with its character building that, dissatisfied with the first guy I made after 20 hours, I rolled a new one and beat its first act again in half the time.
When I played Rogue Trader in beta, there were no guides I could rely on, and its level-up screen made for a quagmire of effects, stats, and nouns with little indication of what was actually good. I'd recommend a guide, either from cRPG Bro or Revan619 on YouTube.
For my playthrough on the notch above normal "Daring" difficulty, I'm following builds for my main guy and every single companion, but after 30 hours of gameplay, I do finally feel like I have enough knowledge to make tweaks at my discretion.
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On my first guy, I made what's widely agreed to be the most powerful single build with the—let me take a deep breath here—"Death World Pyromancer Psyker Blade Dancer Executioner."