Although the Emperor’s light guides our way in Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader, the cRPG’s co-op mode works in a manner that allows other players to join us and help out on our adventures.
Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader co-op makes navigating the Koronus Expanse a bit less lonely but, if the social aspect alone isn’t enough to sell you on it, the mode might also open our eyes to new strategies, as we hand off control of our companions to other players.
Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader Co-Op
Showcased during a livestream whose VoD is no longer available and also detailed in a Steam article, Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader’s co-op allows up to five other players to join us on our adventures.
This can be done using your storefront’s overlay or by the host sharing their server ID with other players. The latter allows for cross-storefront play at launch.
Developer Owlcat Games also plans to “bring the co-op mode to consoles and add crossplay between platforms” at a later date.
Only one member of the party can directly control the Lord Captain, who acts as the main character and decides the direction in which the story goes.
As of patch 1.0.1, parties no longer have to own the same sets of DLC in order to play together. The host automatically shares their purchased DLCs with everyone else in the session, making for a considerably smoother experience.
The remaining players share the roles of the characters in the five available companion slots, whether they be the named figures designed by Owlcat Games – who have an active role to play in the story – or custom-created mercenaries.
These roles can be redistributed at any time by the host. One player can also control multiple characters.
Although the majority of the party cannot directly pick dialog choices, their characters can vote on dialog options, trigger area transitions, and level up the voidship.
One key difference about Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader’s co-op is that the game will not automatically select the best character during skill checks. Instead, the interaction must be triggered by the player controlling said character.
Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader co-op thus shines in combat, where similar limitations do not apply and players can coordinate their actions to more efficiently eliminate the Emperor’s enemies.
Players can tag along for a whole campaign or join sporadically, having the option of accessing a copy of said save after the session concludes and hosting games of their own using it.
This makes for a flexible system that allows anyone involved to pick up from where things left off on their own, which is a welcome compromise for what remains primarily a single-player RPG.
One thing to keep in mind is that co-op players might need to spend times as spectators until enough playable characters are unlocked, since the game doesn’t artificially grant access to them during multiplayer sessions.
The players controlling these characters can decide how to level them, pick up loot, access the shared inventory and cargo, interact with vendors, the trade empire management interface, and the ship equipment.
Friendly fire is also something you’ll want to look out for, since you don’t want to accidentally offer your pals as gifts to the Chaos Gods.
Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader’s co-op extends to its space combat portions as well, granting those involved full shared control of the ship.
Space exploration is a bit different, since most actions are story-related and the domain of the Lord Captain.
For more on Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader, drop by our article covering cross-platform support.
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