When Owlcat left behind the bloated Pathfinder system, a numberhead ruleset that held back the otherwise excellent Kingmaker and Wrath of the Righteous, I rejoiced. Finally, with Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader, they’d have the opportunity to focus on their strengths: storytelling and player freedom.
But while Rogue Trader did have at least a couple of acts’ worth of great writing and a neat warp exploration system, the rules were an absolute nightmare. Rather than trimming down the clunky rules of the tabletop game they were inspired by, Owlcat overcomplicated them, resulting in mechanics so fiddly I resented every level-up and trudged through every combat.
But for the studio’s next 40K game, Dark Heresy, things will apparently be different. “We will be redoing everything from scratch,” executive producer Anatoly Shestov told The Gamer. “Even the design things, mechanical things, abilities, options, role-playing systems. There will be changes even in the basic stats.”
I’ve got my fingers and mechadendrites crossed for a reduction in complexity and repetition overall. It would be nice if there was less of the story bloat that made Rogue Trader’s act three feel like a pointless digression too, and maybe I’ll get my wish. “We decided that the whole story would be smaller in scale,” Shestov said, “but wider in a variety of the ways you can react. Not just in terms of a story, but in terms of level design, in terms of combat design, in terms of alliances. Every bit of the things that we are making, we are making for the Dark Heresy with variety as one of the cornerstone design principles.”
Of course, the other big problem with Owlcat’s games is their tendency to release in a state that borders on unfinished. Shestov said that the studio wants Dark Heresy to be a “less buggy, more polished gaming experience” by comparison, but I’ll believe that when I see it.
