Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader

There are three editions of this game and two season passes, and the expansions add companions, systems and stories. Here is what the current purchase actually covers.

Three editions, two passes and the expansions that are out

The editions stack in a straight line. Core is the game plus a unique void ship and a set of exclusive weapons. Deluxe adds a digital artbook, the soundtrack and a wallpaper pack, and those three extras are not available on consoles. Voidfarer contains everything from Deluxe and adds a Cherub pet, a unique Rogue Trader's Throne and a season pass.

Two season passes sit on top of that. The first covers Void Shadows and Lex Imperialis. The second covers The Infinite Museion and a fourth expansion that has not shipped yet, along with an appearance pack. Separately, three story expansions are out so far: Void Shadows, Lex Imperialis and The Infinite Museion, the third of the three. There is also a free add-on, The Shovel DLC, which is a weapon crossover rather than a story.

Platform coverage is PC through Steam, GOG and the Epic Games Store, plus Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5. A physical Voidfarer Edition has been announced for PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch 2 in October; it is an announcement rather than a shipped product, so check what your store is actually selling before you buy a pass.

The retinue is the real character sheet

You do not travel alone, and the retinue is built from three very different kinds of people: righteous heroes, twisted psykers and what the Imperium would call perfidious xenos. Each companion has a defined combat role as well as a personality. Abelard Werserian is your first officer, a melee specialist who taunts enemies and shields companions, and he knows the local nobility well enough to matter in a conversation. Idira Tlass is an unsanctioned psyker and diviner who supports and buffs the party or throws ranged psychic attacks, and whose own existence is a crime in the eyes of the Imperium.

What makes the group more than a roster is that you can guide each of them through their own story and change where they end up. In a setting where everyone has an agenda, reshaping destinies reads as a warning as much as a feature.

Combat is cover, momentum and the weapon you brought

Fights are a fully-fledged isometric turn-based affair adapted from the classic Rogue Trader ruleset. You think through every action, position the party optimally, and use the environment to take cover. The shooting is where the squad's roles separate: a sniper can pierce several targets in a line, while burst fire is built for groups.

Swinging the momentum of a battle is the other half. Dropping enemies and using your leadership unlocks special abilities called Heroic Acts, and when battle momentum falls low enough you can call Desperate Measures, powerful actions with drawbacks. Between the two, a turn becomes a decision about tempo rather than only about damage.

The Infinite Museion and the body-horror upgrade

The most recent expansion drops you into a vault curated by Trazyn the Infinite, an ancient collector whose interest in your dynasty has its own plans attached. You choose whether to serve his designs or oppose him.

It also adds a companion, Eogunn Februs, a Tech-Priest Manipulus and support specialist with unique buffs, and a compartment on your voidship called Sector Bionica. That unlocks an augmentation system that lets you replace damaged flesh with bionics, improving resilience and opening new tactical options while the more esoteric modifications get steadily more dangerous.

Updates can move the ground under your save

The game is still being reworked under its own expansion line. The sixth major update, 1.6, is the clearest example: it reworked Uralon the Cruel and his daemons, changed how Pasqal and the Forge World origins interact with the augmentation system, improved Operative talent scaling, made grenades count as area attacks that can crit, and rebuilt the talent selection interface with filters and grouping.

The fine print is the part to read before you update. On Steam the previous build stays available through beta branches, for mods or for finishing a run without the changes, but saves made on 1.6 will not load on those legacy branches, The Infinite Museion will not run without the update, and bug reports filed from a legacy branch are not processed. Co-op and mods are not guaranteed to keep working there either.

Should you play it

Yes, if you want a long, talkative role-playing game where your warrant gives you latitude the rest of the sector does not and your crew is the plot. The retinue carries the writing, the turn-based combat rewards planning over reflexes, and the expansions add companions and systems as well as stories.

Go in knowing what you are agreeing to. This is a heavily text-driven game with long combat turns, and the editions and passes are not one product, so check what you are actually buying before you commit to the most expensive one. If you are unsure, the base game is the sensible first step; add an expansion once you know the campaign is for you.