Warning: The following article on why Rogue Trader made me realize why fans worship Warhammer 40K contains spoilers for the game.
Like an unsatiable blaze, the battle maiden chanted in reverence to her Lord as she pulled the trigger, swarms of bullets snuffing the life scampering inside the heretics. I watched them die a dog’s death. There was no escaping the devout barrel of a coarsened follower of The Emperor.
Pivoting, an invisible righteous ghost seemed to overtake her form as she noticed me. The carnage dehumanized the maiden into a crazed slayer, and if not for the snapping plea of one of my companions, we might have put a bullet in each other’s head.
As much as I am in awe of Rogue Trader, I often feel literal dread. The Warhammer 40K universe is so oppressively dark that all glimpses of light only radiate from the hopeless pits of feverish beliefs spewing from the masses.
Religion has an uncompromising grip on all life birthed out of the cosmos, with dogmas glorifying viciousness against the unworthy and traitorous. However, in that savagery are very profound lines separating factions with unique laws and mindsets, which initially convinced me to try a Warhammer 40K game and understand why fans worship this franchise.
I’ve tried to dive into this mammoth series for years, from its plethora of RTS games to the recent Darktide. Each installment delivered the tone of what makes Warhammer 40K one-of-a-kind, but I could never truly pinpoint the meaty essence of the universe from those games.
I desired a more grand-spanning narrative where I could engage with drastically opposite personalities and decipher the glue that keeps fans unmoving. For me, Rogue Trader exposed just that, and to shocking effect.
Simply put, I’ve learned this series is wild, and by doubling down on its fanatical aspects, Warhammer 40K boasts a galaxy of morally complicated, never-ending conflict. As the Rogue Trader, one of the most powerful beings tasked with exploring the periphery of space for The Emperor, you see this blatant madness in the CRPG.
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Traitors overrun and set ablaze once-prospering worlds for an unholy God, noblemen turn on each other and use lethal force instead of debating, and human beings live out their scratch of life deep in the hulls of battleships. Everything is bleak and oppressive. Vitriolic. Dark thoughts can spawn malefic effects; the universe’s psychic parallel dimension, The Warp, housing entities readily gorging on these rampant emotions of the living.
Chaos lives, breathes, and savagely dies in Warhammer 40K, as evident from the opening hours of Rogue Trader. My mentor brought me under her wing to potentially succeed her as a Rogue Trader, but minutes after our meeting, we’re in the throes of an uprising threatening the balance of her ship. Friend and foe lose meaning in this mayhem. And later, I’d find my mentor with a bullet between her eyes – assassinated like any other human – and thrust unceremoniously into her late role.
Companions in Rogue Trader help contextualize these intense moments with convictions that define them as people. And this is what made me start loving this franchise.
Abelard, the former Rogue Trader’s right-hand man, obsesses over maintaining militaristic order while in my service, and we struggled to find common ground on how to deal with the aftereffects of the ship’s uprising.
We knew the remnants of the traitors were still lingering around, and Abelard had decided to cut off heat and other essentials to one of the living quarters after his men found heretical items. I went down there and righted the situation by not depriving them of crucial resources. Naturally, Abelard was pissed and questioned my rule as Rogue Trader.
In the past, Abelard wasn’t as lenient in a similar situation, and that moment of softness gave heretics the purchase to brew a violent rebellion that scarred the man.
It was a grueling chat, but we concluded we should strive to be better leaders versus ruthless faces from above. This is just one of a few ways you could have tackled this scenario, but by fighting against Abelard’s viewpoint, I stepped away appreciative of his stance.
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So many people in Warhammer 40K are torn on the inside and hold onto their faiths as a defiant sense of strength over things they’re powerless against. The universe is gunmetal grey. For better or worse, someone somewhere is pushing on to reach another morning in this sea of stars.
Warhammer 40K lures you with its viciousness; however, Rogue Trader taught me you stick with the franchise because of its grimdark lore, over-the-top aesthetic, the extreme creeds of factions, and everything in between. Coming to understand these parts of a larger whole scales the series into this grandiose sci-fi experience with boundless possibilities, and in turn, you encounter many transformed by its callousness for the sake of their definition of survival.
It’s all just a macabre twist of fate and circumstances, one that we can get lost in and appreciate despite its disturbing qualities.
