Owlcat began life as a small developer, as so many do, but with plenty of expertise on the team. 2018’s Pathfinder: Kingmaker, its first game, was successful, so the natural thing to do next was to make a bigger and better sequel. Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous followed in 2021. Another Pathfinder might have followed, but Owlcat took a significant step forward with 2023\u2019s Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader, a sort of Baldur\u2019s Gate 3 set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe game, rougher around the edges than Larian\u2019s masterpiece, but no less meaty and with just as good writing. It\u2019s a fantastic role-playing game, with plenty of choice and consequence. Many feel it\u2019s one of the best Warhammer 40,000 video games ever made. It might even be the best.<\/p>\n
Now, Owlcat has two announced games in production: Warhammer 40,000: Dark Heresy and The Expanse: Osiris Reborn. Dark Heresy continues Owlcat’s impressive run of cRPGs, but The Expanse is something of a departure for the studio, a third-person action RPG made in the Mass Effect style. And so, what started as 15 people working together on Pathfinder is now a whopping 600-person development studio making multiple big projects. Owlcat has grown enormously in just a decade, and with that growth has come significant change to the way it develops games. But, co-founder and creative director Alexander Mishulin tells me, the studio has lost none of its passion for making RPGs that pack a real punch.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m a huge Warhammer 40,000 fan, as anyone who\u2019s followed my articles on IGN over the last few years will probably know. For me, Rogue Trader put Owlcat on the map, and I assume opened doors for the company. Mishulin admits Rogue Trader was an important milestone, but he points to Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous as the real inflection point.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt’s a huge game with a lot of different choices and, even now, it comes up in a lot of top 10 games you don\u2019t know about but you don\u2019t want to miss,\u201d Mishulin says. \u201cWe couldn\u2019t make it without Kingmaker because it was our foundation to make a second game. But also, it showed a lot of people that we were serious about making great RPGs. When a studio does a second game and it is still successful, it is proof you can make these experiences over and over with new things, new ambition, new goals. It helped start a lot of discussions with different parties about what we can do next. And of course it helped establish a good relationship with Games Workshop while doing Rogue Trader.\u201d<\/p>\n
Owlcat pitched Rogue Trader before Wrath of the Righteous was even released, showing Games Workshop internal versions of Pathfinder to prove it was serious about making a great isometric RPG for Warhammer 40,000 fans. But yes, after Rogue Trader came out and was a success, more doors opened for discussions, both with publishers and IP holders about what the studio might do next.<\/p>\n
Similarly, The Expanse was discussed while Rogue Trader was in the works \u2014 Owlcat showed The Expanse rights holder Alcon Entertainment first concepts during preliminary discussions during the final stages of Rogue Trader\u2019s development. The Expanse, with its over the shoulder camera perspective and cinematic, action RPG gameplay, is clearly a departure for Owlcat, whose previous games had a top down isometric camera perspective and deep RPG mechanics. Dark Heresy follows the cRPG trend, although the twist here is there is a focus on an investigation system and the fantasy of being an Inquisitor (Warhammer 40,000\u2019s Imperial detectives). Owlcat has other projects in the works, and these are different again (Mishulin won\u2019t say what they are, as you\u2019d expect).<\/p>\n
What is success for Owlcat? The studio has three plans for its games before they come out. One, a plan for the minimal estimation of sales and revenue. Two, a plan for the average estimation, or what the game is supposed<\/em> to achieve. And three, a plan for if a game sells very, very well, like in unexpected, viral hit terms. Rogue Trader performed \u201cbetter than average,\u201d Mishulin says, more successful, certainly, than Wrath of the Righteous, and more visible, but it wasn’t a viral hit in the way Baldur’s Gate 3 was.<\/p>\n Rogue Trader’s success was, first and foremost, the result of it being a great game. But the comparison to Baldur\u2019s Gate 3 (both games came out in the same year) actually helped Rogue Trader out, too \u2014 something Mishulin is very grateful for.<\/p>\n \u201cWe were really humbled that a lot of players and a lot of streamers compared us to BG3,\u201d he says, \u201cbecause BG3 is an enormous behemoth. It is one of the greatest RPGs ever made with a lot of ambition, passion, everything. We hope that at some point we will be able to compete directly, but not at the time of Rogue Trader. It is not like a real competition.<\/p>\n \u201cOn the other hand, BG3 did a great favor to a lot of RPG games. It brought them into the spotlight. Now RPGs can be a mainstream experience. When so many players enjoyed BG3, they started to look for what our next game will be, and we enjoyed this experience. \u2018What can we try?\u2019 Some of them go to our games to try them and enjoy them. So we are really grateful to Larian that they made such a great game not only because we enjoyed it \u2014 like, most of our developers played it for hundreds of hours \u2014 but also because they really made a lot of players aware of the genres and of the great games that are present there. Not only ours, but all of the games that are in there.\u201d<\/p>\n Warhammer 40,000 as a setting, as a franchise, as a tabletop game, has never been bigger. I\u2019ve spoken to plenty of video game developers who have told me now is the time to make a Warhammer 40,000 game, with huge interest in the IP. Saber Interactive\u2019s Space Marine 2 took Warhammer 40,000 video games to a whole new level (its protagonist, Titus, is now one of the most prominent characters in the ongoing tabletop narrative). And assuming Henry Cavill\u2019s Warhammer 40,000 Cinematic Universe actually gets off the ground, the franchise will only grow further.<\/p>\n Mishulin acknowledges that Owlcat has benefited from the enormous Warhammer 40,000 audience that found the fun in Rogue Trader. But he then flips this idea on its head, insisting Rogue Trader also brought people into the Warhammer 40,000 universe. \u201cIt probably will be a little bit arrogant, but I will still say it: I hope that our efforts also brought a little bit of this golden era for Games Workshop as well,\u201d he quips.<\/p>\n Owlcat saw that a percentage of Rogue Traders players who initially arrived simply to enjoy an RPG game, then became immersed in the world of Warhammer 40,000 and started to look at the tabletop experience or other video games in the setting. That is, they became fans of the Warhammer 40,000 setting through<\/em> Rogue Trader.<\/p>\n This checks out, at least for me. My love affair with Warhammer 40,000 truly began with the first Dawn of War game, back in 2004. I had dabbled in buying minis and painting them at school beforehand, but fell out of Warhammer 40,000 until some years later. Dawn of War then got me hooked. And now, I fuss over every single lore entry from the latest codex releases and novels, even snippets of information in official online posts and, of course, the many Warhammer 40,000 video games.<\/p>\n <\/p>\nWarhammer 40,000 11th Edition Cinematic Trailer: All Shots of the Emperor<\/h3>\n