Rogue Trader Wiki

What is Rogue Trader?

Warhammer 40000: Rogue Trader is a CRPG, where the player takes the role of a Rogue Trader endowed with the task of expanding the borders of the Imperium, starting their adventure from an unexplored region of the space known as Koronus Expanse. The protagonist will explore unknown, forgotten, and lost worlds as well as planets that are already claimed coming across potential allies, enemies, and rivals of the Imperium.

In this adventure, the decisions made by the player will mainly affect the fate of the lives of entire worlds. These decisions include the possibility of gaining new companions who may become assets for your quests as well as special new equipment gained by completing certain quests, looting special areas, and defeating bosses or groups of enemies in battles in turn-based battles.

Rogue Trader Release Date

Rogue Trader was first announced on the eve of June 1, 2022, and the official launch date will be on December 7, 2023, across all available platforms. Owlcat Games also announced that co-op mode is immediately available on PC at launch, whereas this feature will arrive a little bit later on consoles.

What We Know So Far

Rogue Traders are space explorers and merchants, who can act in other freedom because of the Warrant of Trade, which is a legal document that accords them with special privileges, allowing them to have total control of their choices, in other words, they are not confined to the rules of the Imperium of Man. But they still have the task of surveying the galaxy and conducting mercantile activities for the Emperor. 

The Rogue Trader will however encounter several enemies such as Xenos, hostile Factions, or other rogue traders with an opposite moral. Alliances can also be formed for mutual convenience but Rogue Traders should beware of potential treason for taking such alliances. The protagonist will be accompanied by up to 5 companions forming a party of 6.

In the announcement trailer, Teodora can be seen approaching with her ship to a Necron Tomb. Necrons are a robotic Xenos species that are awakening with the purpose of dominating galaxies once again. Why is this awakening happening? Did Teodora know this would happen? Is Teodora related to the awakening of Necrons? These are mysteries that the player will have to solve during their journey.

Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader Features

• Explore the Koronus Expanse - Begin your adventure aboard your personal, giant Voidship, traveling between the multitude of systems within the Koronus Expanse, a barely charted and incredibly perilous region of space. Despite being considered a backwater of the Imperium, this region encompasses an enormous stretch of the void, filled with dangerous creatures and prodigious opportunities for profit and exploration.
• Your decisions matter, Lord-Captain - During quests show your subjects mercy or disdain, stay faithful to the God-Emperor, or consort with enemies of Mankind - your every decision and every act, even in character creation, is changing the in-game open world and those who inhabit it.
• Gather your crew - Rogue Traders never travel alone. Gather your retinue of righteous heroes, twisted psykers, and perfidious Xenos. All of them are ready to follow you into the darkness between the stars. They will offer you counsel, aid you in battle, and allow you to amass ever more power. In return, you can guide them through their own personal journeys, changing their destinies forever.
• Plan your actions carefully - Slaughter the enemies of Mankind in a fully-fledged isometric turn-based tactical combat. Take advantage of cover, the environment, and careful positioning to overpower your enemies. When that is not enough - use your companion`s powerful abilities to turn the tide of battle and achieve victory even in the direst of situations. Our video game adaption of the classic Rogue Trader ruleset allows an enormous number of possibilities for you to explore.

 

Rogue Trader System Requirements

Recommended Requirements

• Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-6400 CPU @ 2.70GHz
• GPU: AMD Radeon RX 570 / NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti
• Memory: 16 GB RAM
• Disk: 100 GB available space
• OS: Windows 10

Minimum Requirements

• Processor: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-4590T CPU @ 2.00GHz
• GPU: AMD Radeon RX Vega 6 / Intel HD Graphics 630
• Memory: 8 GB RAM
• Disk: 100 GB available space
• OS: Windows 10

Romance in Warhammer 40K Rogue Trader

Romance in Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader won’t be as “free” as the one in Baldur’s Gate 3 where interacting with your companions in camp a couple of times will already make them fall for your character. Here, there’s a lot of preparation and thought that goes into finding a worthy partner.

According to Rogue Trader Creative Director Alexander Mishulin, “We have had a lot of fun adding romance to such a dark universe. As you can imagine, romance in 40K is not like it is in other worlds – here, it’s a lot of arranged marriages and political maneuvering. But we’ve had a ton of fun figuring out out-of-the-box ways to incorporate it in Rogue Trader, and we can’t wait for people to see it.”

Companions & Factions in Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader

Companions may have proficiency on certain kind of equipment, specially weaponry, but they can be equiped with different gear if the player wants them to do so. The protagonist will be able to recruit up to 5 companions from different Factions, but the roster might be a lot bigger as the developers have been teasing us with the background of many potential companions and lore about their factions such as:

• The Space Marines of the Space Wolves Legion: Metahumans raised by the Emperor to fight his causes.
• The Sisters of Battle: An elite all-female group of warrior who want to get rid of the corruption on Earth.
• The Aeldari Rangers: Excellent Xenos rangers and masksmen skilled at spotting any target's witnesses from a distance. Wanderers of the outskirts of the universe, loyal to their homeworlds.
• The Psyker: Intelligent casters of powerful psychic abilities, drawn from a different dimension known as the Warp.

There are more factions that may or may not offer companions to your roster or party such as the T'au, who are humanoid creatures who also expand their empire but not in such a hostile way as the Necrons. The Dark Eldar or the Drukhari, are intelligent savages with advanced tech. The Tech-Priests serve the Imperium by maintaining and upgrading their technology.

The decisions made by the protagonists during their adventure, along with the alignment and political differences between the protagonist and each faction will surely negatively affect the possibilities to gain new companions.

Gameplay & Exploration in Rogue Trader

The adventure is all about exploring and visiting various planets while navigating the worlds in their ship, some of them unexplored or at least unclaimed. In contrast, other planets will be populated and controlled by a faction. Two worlds found by exploring the galaxy are the Agri-World and the Forge World. In an Agri-World, the crew will be able to generate agricultural products needed to feed the Imperium and its inhabitants. But the Tech-Priests are in control of the Forge World, and they are in charge of building factories that will produce war machines for the Imperium and the serving factions. It is necessary to help these Worlds and understand their problems in order to gain a better view of the ways of the Koronus Expanse and how it managed to adapt throughout the centuries.

Additionally, a selection of starter Voidships is also available during Character Creation. Players can rename their ship according to their preference, but any customization will happen later as players progress in-game. Voidships are the reliable mode of transportation that Rogue Traders will be using as they travel from one expanse to another. Whether they are serving the Lord-Emperor or interested in only deepening their own pockets, a Voidship will always come in handy.

Rogue Trader Combat Basics

The combat mechanics are inspired by the 2009 tabletop game from Fantasy Flight. The CRPG will have a turn-based combat style similar to Kingmaker rather than real-time with a pause to take a bunch of combat decisions. The ruleset for combat mechanics won't be a complete adaptation but still, some elements will be taken from it. Combat is dependent on the outcome of dice rolls, d100 dices, depending on the resulting value plus modifiers that will decrease or increase the chance of success or failure in an event, such as hitting an enemy from a distance with a weapon. These modifiers can be changed by gaining a status effect or granted as a passive effect from the character's Equipment.

 

A combat sequence starts by determining the initiative order of every character involved in the fight unless the battle is triggered by certain conditions such as a surprise or sneak attack. Each character has a limited amount actions available to perform during their turn. The classic rule is to limit the amount of distance movement and a main action that may be able to split into 2 half actions according to different sets of variables, and usually, there are also opportunity actions triggered by special conditions that won't consume the available action, or it may also be possible to perform this action out of the character's turn.

 Character Creation & Customization in Rogue Trader

Character Creation & Customization will be very similar to the Fantasy Flight Games' tabletop game of the same name. Choices that you make during the creation of your character will matter greatly later as you travel through the planets in the Koronus Expanse. Rogue Trader puts an emphasis on creating the finest Rogue Trader and has added various mechanics that will affect the character's skills, modifiers, stats, talents, and features.

W40K: Rogue Trader Choosing Between a Custom and Pre-Generated Character

Players are presented with an opportunity to create a character from scratch or pick from 1 one of the 3 available pre-generated characters. This will include Hecata, Darrius, and Bahardor, each of these characters has a different combination of Backgrounds and Abilities, but they are created just in case players get overwhelmed by the massive choices available during Character Creation.

A Pre-Generated Character can help new players get settled into the game and begin playing in a short amount of time. Players can still customize these characters but will be presented with pre-existing combinations. Players can choose from three different Archetypes: Marksman, Operative, and Warrior. The fourth and considerably the most difficult archetype to master was excluded from the selection which is the Officer.