[Spartacus]

Owlcat Games is intent on making the most immersive simulation of life in the 41st millennium. Rogue Traders live on the edge of the Imperium, skirting imperial laws thanks to the Warrants of Trade that they carry in their cathedral-esque spacecraft. They’re the perfect protagonist for a CRPG, seeing as they are (usually) more regular human than galactic super soldier, are joined by a cast of weirdos from across the universe, and abide by their own wavering morality more than a sense of loyalty to the God-Emperor of Mankind.

Owlcat, however, wants to put a leash on that freedom to protect the lore and direct players to engage with Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader's narrative on a more substantive level. Whether this is limiting the clothes that your character can wear, as they explained in our previous interview, or weapons each character can use, the restrictions offer as much of an opportunity for roleplaying as the freedom of choice laid out in front of you.

This also means that romance options are limited, much to the chagrin of alpha and beta players. Magos Explorator Pasqal Haneumann and Sister Argenta of the Adepta Sororitas, among others, are not romanceable, no matter the gender of your Rogue Trader. The restriction on the latter of the two particularly bothers players populating online forums, as more people are interested in shacking up with a sexy warrior nun than a weird half-robot dude who speaks to his rifles. Who’d have thunk it?

“Implementing the romances with the companions was the challenge of itself because we need to respect the lore and the restrictions that there are in the lore, and on the other hand, we wanted to make it exciting for the player,” explains narrative lead Olga Kelner. Again, it comes back to the lore, but it’s also about being true to the characters Owlcat has created.

“Sometimes it was for lore reasons,” Kelner continues. “Sometimes it was for character consistency because, for example, Seneschal Abelard [Werserian]. There are some things in the character's background and his relationship with your predecessor and in his relationship with his dead wife because he's a widower, that it just didn't feel right to implement romance because, it would go against the narrative, it wouldn't be true to his character.”

However, when I mention that gay men or players roleplaying a gay male Inquisitor are disappointed that there is only one, unpalatable romance option available to them – the only possibility is an alien terrorist, who you may not even recruit – the mood in the Discord call gets immediately frosty. Straight players, male or female, already have at least three options, while lesbian players suffer a similar issue to gay men with just one bisexual character to romance, an incredibly generic banker. At least she’s not a terrorist. No sooner have I asked whether Owlcat would implement more LGBT+ romances into the full game, executive producer Anatoly Shestov jumps in, audibly defensive, as if to shut down any perceived accusation of homophobia from Rogue Trader’s gay fans.

“It's not about LGBTQ+ options,” he says. “It's about the narrative of the whole picture that we envisioned and want to elaborate on. We didn't see the romances as an option to point out any such ‘aspect’, we see any romance as our way to elaborate on the stories in the most personal way.

“For us internally, it's not the story of the gay person or straight person, it's a story of a Seneschal who lost his wife, or a story of a blood-soaked sociopath who can challenge his own thoughts, or a story of an entire species who can change its own perspective of the world through you. These are the things that we want to tell and we pick the best options to highlight the strength of the story – both in the models, in the portraits, in the voiceovers, in all of the aspects.

“It's not like we have a quota. No, we want to tell a strong story. We found the best possible in a given budget and time frame options to deliver it. And that's how we ended with the given set of the romances. Of course, any person of the team would love to have tens of additional romances. But at the same time, any person on the team would love to have, for example, additional companions like Kroot, everyone wants to have the Kroot mercenary.”

Shestov goes on to explain the process of game development, and that budget and salary constraints all contribute to cutting content. Owlcat prioritised the most immersive features, so naval combat in outer space – a very impressive system to have built from scratch – made the cut instead of more romances.

I can’t help but feel that he’s missing the point, though. Players have no problems with the fact that party members have their set sexualities, if anything it makes more sense and keeps them true to their characters. Players take umbrage with the fact that the already limited options are even further limited if you’re roleplaying as a gay Rogue Trader. The ‘we see past sexuality’ line doesn’t hold up when straight players are afforded the luxury to pick and choose who they romance and gay players are not.

When IRL Warhammer communities are so dominated by straight men, it would have been refreshing for LGBT+ players to see themselves better represented in the 40k universe in a game that promises to offer more roleplaying opportunities than any Games Workshop-affiliated title to date. As it stands, it feels like they’ve been overlooked and the developers are offering a blanket ‘we didn’t have enough money for a lesbian’ statement that seems to willfully misunderstand the issue. Owlcat implemented the romances, so it could have implemented more LGBT+ options by simply balancing the number of straight and LGBT+ party members to better reflect the post-gender society they inhabit.

It also seems a little hypocritical to say that romances must be driven by characters’ needs and befit their own personal stories, but also that these aren’t stories of gay characters or straight characters. A Drukhari terrorist can be gay as much as a straight Seneschal might not be ready for a relationship due to his grief. Characters’ sexualities are a part of them, and so long as romance is a part of Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader, their sexualities are important and worthy of discussion. After all, love is as much a part of life in the 41st millennium as war.

https://www.thegamer.com/warhammer-40000...t-romance/

[TypicalTricks]

so it could have implemented more LGBT+ options by simply balancing the number of straight and LGBT+ party members to better reflect the post-gender society they inhabit.

What?

[Vilis_Hāzners]

Projected sales for this game just went tits up if they do the gay. 40Kbros hate the gay and they're the only people who buy 40K games. LOL

[Dobrogost]

Projected sales for this game just went tits up if they do the gay.  40Kbros hate the gay and they're the only people who buy 40K games. LOL

Something similar happened with the so-called expansion pack to Baldur's Gate (the classic one).

They were making a sort of a sequel to this old CRPG that is beloved by older gamers, and yet they chose to flood it with faggotry, SJW retcons and other pozzed content, and they literally put a repulsive bluehair in charge of the game's writing.

They clearly didn't know their target audience and it must've had a negative effect on the game's sales overall, as their CEO was later begging for positive reviews on gaming sites.



What a bunch of fuckers!

[Andrew Anglin]

40K games

Because they are all trash. I've had this conversation millions of times (though I've never actually looked it up to see if the information is available): Games Workshop has to just give the license to anyone and then take a percentage.

Every shithole company makes random 40k games and they are all garbage. I heard Mechanacus (or whtever) was good but I couldn't get into it. I must have played a dozen of these games, because the shit looks cool, and they were all horrible, except for Total War, which doesn't really even count. I played this Xcom knockoff like a year ago and it made me want to die. It's like bro, it's not a hard job, just rip off Xcom. People do it every day. I've dumped a whole lot of hours into Phoenix Point - it was my goto "catch up on the podcasts on 1.5x in the background" game for like a year. I am the absolute target audience of any Xcom ripoff, and especially a 40k one, because that shit looks cool.

I warned you people about Owlcat Games. That Pathfinder game was complete garbage. They did some kind of mix of realtime w pause and turn-based that didn't make any sense. It was a total scam, because there is a permanent group of people that will buy any game that looks similar to Infinity Engine games and has a little bit of polish. I played Pillars 2 all the way to the end - even with all of those blacks. So I'm the audience for that too.

This is a deadly combo: a shitty company that scammed me twice on supposed BG successors using the town whore IP.

It sucks for 40k bros, I'm sure. I don't remember the old saying, but it's something about "you suck one cock, and you're a cocksucker for the rest of your life." If 40k goes gay, it's not going back. The fact that Games Workshop is allowing Owlcat to make this decision about their IP is insane. It has to have some precedent. They have to have published some kind of gay shit recently that this is following from.

[Paul Harrell]

Because they are all trash. I've had this conversation millions of times (though I've never actually looked it up to see if the information is available): Games Workshop has to just give the license to anyone and then take a percentage.

Every shithole company makes random 40k games and they are all garbage.

Not a 40k guy but I got a test copy of whatever the newish 40k game is that runs on GZDoom (the advanced DOOM source port that a lot of these new "retro" boomer shooters are based on).

Even that is straight up mid at best in the realm of modern DOOM total conversions. And it's essentially just 40k flavored DOOM! How do you fuck that up?

[Andrew Anglin]

Because they are all trash. I've had this conversation millions of times (though I've never actually looked it up to see if the information is available): Games Workshop has to just give the license to anyone and then take a percentage.

Every shithole company makes random 40k games and they are all garbage.

Not a 40k guy but I got a test copy of whatever the newish 40k game is that runs on GZDoom (the advanced DOOM source port that a lot of these new "retro" boomer shooters are based on).

Even that is straight up mid at best in the realm of modern DOOM total conversions. And it's essentially just 40k flavored DOOM! How do you fuck that up?

No one understands it.

[TheGoldenDragon]

Because they are all trash. I've had this conversation millions of times (though I've never actually looked it up to see if the information is available): Games Workshop has to just give the license to anyone and then take a percentage.

Every shithole company makes random 40k games and they are all garbage.

Not a 40k guy but I got a test copy of whatever the newish 40k game is that runs on GZDoom (the advanced DOOM source port that a lot of these new "retro" boomer shooters are based on).

Even that is straight up mid at best in the realm of modern DOOM total conversions. And it's essentially just 40k flavored DOOM! How do you fuck that up?

Boltgun?

[Paul Harrell]

Because they are all trash. I've had this conversation millions of times (though I've never actually looked it up to see if the information is available): Games Workshop has to just give the license to anyone and then take a percentage.

Every shithole company makes random 40k games and they are all garbage.

Not a 40k guy but I got a test copy of whatever the newish 40k game is that runs on GZDoom (the advanced DOOM source port that a lot of these new "retro" boomer shooters are based on).

Even that is straight up mid at best in the realm of modern DOOM total conversions. And it's essentially just 40k flavored DOOM! How do you fuck that up?

Boltgun?

yeah that's the one

[Vilis_Hāzners]

40K games

Because they are all trash. I've had this conversation millions of times (though I've never actually looked it up to see if the information is available): Games Workshop has to just give the license to anyone and then take a percentage.

Every shithole company makes random 40k games and they are all garbage. I heard Mechanacus (or whtever) was good but I couldn't get into it. I must have played a dozen of these games, because the shit looks cool, and they were all horrible, except for Total War, which doesn't really even count. I played this Xcom knockoff like a year ago and it made me want to die. It's like bro, it's not a hard job, just rip off Xcom. People do it every day. I've dumped a whole lot of hours into Phoenix Point - it was my goto "catch up on the podcasts on 1.5x in the background" game for like a year. I am the absolute target audience of any Xcom ripoff, and especially a 40k one, because that shit looks cool.

I warned you people about Owlcat Games. That Pathfinder game was complete garbage. They did some kind of mix of realtime w pause and turn-based that didn't make any sense. It was a total scam, because there is a permanent group of people that will buy any game that looks similar to Infinity Engine games and has a little bit of polish. I played Pillars 2 all the way to the end - even with all of those blacks. So I'm the audience for that too.

This is a deadly combo: a shitty company that scammed me twice on supposed BG successors using the town whore IP.

It sucks for 40k bros, I'm sure. I don't remember the old saying, but it's something about "you suck one cock, and you're a cocksucker for the rest of your life." If 40k goes gay, it's not going back. The fact that Games Workshop is allowing Owlcat to make this decision about their IP is insane. It has to have some precedent. They have to have published some kind of gay shit recently that this is following from.

I can't disagree with this post at all.

Sad.

[Panzerhund]

As soon as 40k started implementing women into its lore it was the beginning of the end. No one said anything because of exposed boobs and here we are now.

Always starts with women and ends with fags.

[Conan The Gamer]

As soon as 40k started implementing women into its lore it was the beginning of the end.  No one said anything because of exposed boobs and here we are now. 

Always starts with women and ends with fags.

It begins with booba, then they clad them in armor, reduce them, add manly features and ugliness, and there you go. 

"Battle sister, are you injured? Blood is coming out from between your legs! Was it a Necron?
Oh... I see. What?! Half your unit? But that's...! No, I didn't mean to offend! Please don't tell Resourcis Humanicus! I... Look, it's okay, we'll take care of the ambush by ourselves, you go rest"

[Trogladyte]

As soon as 40k started implementing women into its lore it was the beginning of the end.  No one said anything because of exposed boobs and here we are now. 

Always starts with women and ends with fags.

You know the meme, with women entering the hobby space and what happens. It should be edited to make the cool dude there for the pussy (ass?) explicitly a simp cos that's what's killing 40k, that and fucking monopose models deliberately molded to make swapping parts very difficult. GW were always an extreme rip off operation though, it's the woman gay tranny triumvirate thing that's what's ultra toxic.

When I was a kid in the 90s you'd go to the Games workshop store and it would just be 9-13 year old boys, with the odd 30 year old manchild kicking about telling you the rules, but they were harmless, usually quite charismatic in a sort of geeky anorak way in that they took the whole thing quite seriously, when you are a kid this seems to be a virtue because you're here for the game and the toys and the cool story, not to get a bit of pussy, and the gatekeeper is there for the game and the story and the hobby etc too.

40K is a male power fantasy, space marines appeal to young boys, as a masculine ideal, the Imperium is a male fantasy of a society when militarism, theocracy and violence are a necessity, this is how men really view the world (it's basically true though) cos it justifies the necessity of the male spirit. The problem with 40k was always the lefties hovering about it, ashamed to admit that they like it, that they like tanks and guns and space marines, because these thing are problematic when you're in the liberal pussy sniffing world. Uh uh, no no, mommy doesn't like you playing with soldiers. These beaten, defeated pussy sniffers always try and give you this whole schtick about it being a parody. It's the gayest thing ever. It's not a parody, it's not some stunning social critique of Thatcher, or whatever they say. It's a toy company that sells it's wares and Ip through appealing to the male power fantasy. Feminists hate the male power fantasy, they want men emasculated. They want us all to be trannies actually. The whole liberal viewpoint within 40k has been around forever, it started with the Black Library, which is utter dogshit for the most part, you might get a decent pulp novel here and there, but even the flagship authors, like Dan Abnett, were pushing ultra liberal stuff that was completely at odds with the setting and the aesthetic and the storyline 25 years ago. I could go on.

I've still never seen a bio front hole in a Games workshop/40k scenario, but I have encountered more trannies through it than anything else. In fact I'd go so far as to say it's totally overrun with trannies now.

[Trogladyte]

40K games

Because they are all trash. I've had this conversation millions of times (though I've never actually looked it up to see if the information is available): Games Workshop has to just give the license to anyone and then take a percentage.

Every shithole company makes random 40k games and they are all garbage. I heard Mechanacus (or whtever) was good but I couldn't get into it. I must have played a dozen of these games, because the shit looks cool, and they were all horrible, except for Total War, which doesn't really even count. I played this Xcom knockoff like a year ago and it made me want to die. It's like bro, it's not a hard job, just rip off Xcom. People do it every day. I've dumped a whole lot of hours into Phoenix Point - it was my goto "catch up on the podcasts on 1.5x in the background" game for like a year. I am the absolute target audience of any Xcom ripoff, and especially a 40k one, because that shit looks cool.

I warned you people about Owlcat Games. That Pathfinder game was complete garbage. They did some kind of mix of realtime w pause and turn-based that didn't make any sense. It was a total scam, because there is a permanent group of people that will buy any game that looks similar to Infinity Engine games and has a little bit of polish. I played Pillars 2 all the way to the end - even with all of those blacks. So I'm the audience for that too.

This is a deadly combo: a shitty company that scammed me twice on supposed BG successors using the town whore IP.

It sucks for 40k bros, I'm sure. I don't remember the old saying, but it's something about "you suck one cock, and you're a cocksucker for the rest of your life." If 40k goes gay, it's not going back. The fact that Games Workshop is allowing Owlcat to make this decision about their IP is insane. It has to have some precedent. They have to have published some kind of gay shit recently that this is following from.

the original Dawn of War, in particular the Dark Crusade expansion, was good. Battlefleet Gothic 1 & 2 are decent as well. I am going to get Space Marine 2 when it comes out. The first one was ok, but it does get really tedious after a while just going from rubble to rubble fighting 20 orks every time. We'll see if it's any good, it will be pozzed to fuck though, just expecting that. I never played the Total war games, and I was never really that into warhammer fantasy. I think every other warhammer 40k game I've played though has been utter shit, literally a waste of time. It's bizarre how badly they manage the IP when it comes to videogames. The people who run GW are pretty small minded, it's not a serious company run by people with a clue IMO.

[TypicalTricks]

It begins with booba, then they clad them in armor, reduce them, add manly features and ugliness, and there you go. 

We can fix them.