Owlcat is 'redoing everything from scratch' in Dark Heresy, its next Warhammer 40,000 CRPG, which is the best thing I've heard about it so far

An inquisitor surrounded by his retinue, including an ogryn, a kroot, and an aeldari

(Image credit: Owlcat)

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.

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."

Jody's first computer was a Commodore 64, so he remembers having to use a code wheel to play Pool of Radiance. A former music journalist who interviewed everyone from Giorgio Moroder to Trent Reznor, Jody also co-hosted Australia's first radio show about videogames, Zed Games. He's written for Rock Paper Shotgun, The Big Issue, GamesRadar, Zam, Glixel, Five Out of Ten Magazine, and Playboy.com, whose cheques with the bunny logo made for fun conversations at the bank. Jody's first article for PC Gamer was about the audio of Alien Isolation, published in 2015, and since then he's written about why Silent Hill belongs on PC, why Recettear: An Item Shop's Tale is the best fantasy shopkeeper tycoon game, and how weird Lost Ark can get. Jody edited PC Gamer Indie from 2017 to 2018, and he eventually lived up to his promise to play every Warhammer videogame.

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