I thought the expansion with the Arbites companion would release first but I can't say that I'm not glad that it's the Death Cult Assassin one instead.

...

1.2 Update Overview

"It is the biggest update of the game so far, containing over 2500 changes, about 30% larger than 1.1.
We’ve left out some internal and minor changes and combined some others together to keep the size of these patch notes reasonable. Here’s a glimpse of what to expect:

- Major balance updates - deep rebalance of out-of-sequence turns, buffs to Sanctioned Psykers and Pyromancy, tuning of scaling in the late game, and a lot of other updates;
- QoL changes to the UI - improved inventory sorting, quests being marked on star systems, improvements to the level up screen, better tooltips, improvements to the combat log, and more;
- Various improvements for locations across the game - pathing, visual effects, cover placement, backgrounds, improved NPC appearance and variety;
- New dialogues for secret companions, fixes and updates for existing dialogues, fixes for epilogue slides;
- Improved rumour system with rumour zones now highlighted on the map;
- Updates for some cutscenes - better animations, timing, cameras;
- Improvements to co-op: desync fixes, custom portrait transfer, save file size reduction, up to two additional custom mercenary characters available in Prologue - play together from the start!
- Many new animations;
- New visual effects (for abilities, auras, creature animations, and more);
- New sound effects and corrections to VO;
- New item icons;
- A few new talents;
- Localization improvements and countless typo fixes for all languages;
- A massive amount of bug fixes for all aspects of the game;
- And much more!

Due to the massive changes to the mechanics, all members of the current party in existing saves will receive a special ability, allowing them to perform a one-time free respecialization. The ability will be removed as soon as the party gains access to the usual means of respecialization. Please be aware of the plot spoilers below!"

Full Patch Notes


Owlcat Sound Team Stream

"A recorded Warhammer 40000: Rogue Trader developer stream from June 21, 2024, featuring the Owlcat Sound team and composers."

A question for the knowing: Some said this was "Pathfinder in space". Is it that similar to Pathfinder Kingmaker then? (I want to believe that it is not).

Good science fiction RPG are a delight. I have been ogling this game since it launched. The backlog beast prevented tests of Pathfinder Kingmaker, so, advice would be welcome.

The games can look and feel similar in some ways because they share an engine and developer, but even the art style is quite different. I wouldn't call it Pathfinder in space.

A big difference is Rogue Trader's combat is turn based only, the Pathfinder games were released as RTWP (Real Time /w Pause) and a janky turn-based option was added later.

My opinion would be to hold off a bit longer on your purchase. The game was a mess at release (I quit after act 2) and they only just recently released another huge patch to address game balance and a lot of other problems. Maybe someone else can comment how the game is post patch, but I'm gonna let it cook a bit more and start fresh once the first DLC is out.

Since release in December it's mostly been a relatively smooth experience for me, with only a few minor quest-related issues (quest stages not being marked as completed in the journal) and a bit of crashing. Actually didn't make the switch to 1.2 yet, because I'm close to the grande finale and don't want the rebalancing throw a wrench in the cogs on the last meters. Playing on 'Unfair' difficulty and the last thing I need is a potential downgrade and making things less challenging.

Can't say anything in regards to the Kingmaker or Wrath of the Righteous comparisons, as those are still sitting in the backlog too.

Probably a good idea to actually wait for the 2 mini expansions to come out, since each adds another companion (a Dealth Cult Assassin and an Adeptus Arbites) giving you more options for a party composition in line with your player character's alignment (Dogmatic, Iconoclast or Heretical).

The reviews did show a wildly varying experience at release, I must have been using the most untested path or choices. My issues were mainly quest triggers not working, cutscenes bugs, getting stuck in dialog trees and glitchy AI in combat. I was spending a lot of time doing bug reports.

The game also became incredibly easy because Officers and Arch-Militants in particular were so broken. Maybe the difficulty spiked to account for that, but I decided to pack it in and wait for patches.

Thank you for the answers. It is very encouraging to hear that the game is really different fo Pathfinder. Both in the art style and in the turn based combat.

I guess that I might want to try the game with the DLC. They have now a season pass for those supporting the game.