REVIEW – The first expansion of Rouge Trader, of astonishing size and complexity, introduces a hitherto unknown world: the brutal world of the inner recesses of our own spaceship.

The first DLC of the 40k RPG I already know promises a familiar yet unknown world. The founder of the grimdark style, the gothic and monumental universe of Warhammer 40000 awaits tortured souls. The add-on, published in Hungarian under the title Empty Shadows or Shadows of Nothing, does not take you far this time, but rather invites you to explore the previously unknown depths of our spaceship.

For those who do not know the world, this in itself might be strange, but in the gigantoman universe, the spaceships are even more grandiose than those presented in most science fiction worlds. Dozens or hundreds of km long giant leviathans decorated with Gothic towers roam the deep space, a generation of space travelers live their miserable lives in more inhumane conditions on board voidships with difficult to translate names. Although the base game already introduced us to suffering and pain, the add-on presents such a scale of suffering, misery, humiliation and senseless horrors that even from a distance in space and time, and even as a fan of the universe, is horrifying.

Leap into the dark

Somewhat surprisingly, the first surprise of the DLC, which starts on its own after a few hyperspace jumps, is the appearance of a warrior, sword-dancing woman: Khibella. The richly tattooed lady is a representative of one of the death cults recognized throughout the Empire and even supported by the Ecclesia. I confess it has been a long time since I dealt much with the world, and according to them, quite serious changes could take place in it, because I don’t remember that this kind of group was included in the previous materials. However, their existence is not surprising, since in a world where the lives of millions of people are spent in the dark belly of a spaceship, kept alive by rarely available food of unknown origin and content, in complete uncertainty, the most diverse and rude cults inevitably spring up. Even with überbrutal law enforcement methods.

The first parts of the mission are spent discovering the cult of the warrior and his mysterious group. Meanwhile, our character explores literally the deepest recesses of his ship. Those places where high-ranking leaders like him have not been for generations or even centuries, and whose existence has fueled legends for quite some time. Unsurprisingly, its appearance causes a serious impact among people at different levels of vulnerability. The decisions of the basic game, according to which we can be humane, i.e. we can follow the moral principles of our day, in many cases cause surprise and even rejection not only from the members of our entourage, but also from those whom we are trying to please. Since in my case the harsh external feeling soul is not covered, I could not choose either the dogmatic, let’s say brutal dictatorial, or the heretical steps that clearly lead to the chaos gods. Although I thereby saved my soul from the clutches of the gods of corruption, my behavior aroused the curiosity of the inquisitor accompanying me on several occasions, which had to be explained to him in detail on several occasions.

After a series of tests (including a literal jump into the dark) we manage to become the chosen one of the ship’s death cult, a shocking event leads us to a mutant. Following the examination of a corpse that is human on the outside but has completely different characteristics on the inside, the investigation into the cause of the change naturally begins immediately in the empire, which treats any human mutation as an enemy.

The cult of the many-armed god

The game really switches to a higher gear when we reach the leader of the previously only superficially involved astropaths used for interstellar communication, the master of the so-called astropathic chorus. With the help of a rare psychic ritual that has already been performed once before, our character tries to reveal the danger lurking on his ship. Of course, like so many things, it doesn’t turn out the way its planner dreamed. The ceremony, which mobilizes significant mental powers, not only summons the previously familiar chaos creatures aboard the ship I named the Destiny Hunter, but also highlights the nature of the threat, which, according to the master astropath who performed the rite, is clearly not human, nor is it anything he has ever seen. With this dark knowledge, we set out again to uncover the problem that, without exaggeration, threatens the lives of all those traveling on the ship. We meet the cause of the problem surprisingly soon, which is nothing more than a gene-sucking cult. Clearly inspired by the xenomorphs of the world of Alien, the backstory of the Genorzos has been greatly expanded in recent decades. For now, suffice it to say that they infect people by biting, who then start to mutate. Since the genorzos themselves have six limbs, two legs and four arms, they appear as angels to those infected in this way and usually like the image of servants of the many-armed god.

Although the preliminary materials tried to hide the main enemy of the DLC, when the multi-armed god was mentioned, it became clear before the battle what the danger lurking on the space trader’s ship was. Genorzos destroy infected societies from within. Their movements and cults are not really different at first from the religious groups that are difficult to classify and can be found everywhere in the world of 40,000. However, their goal is to gradually and imperceptibly take control of the entire population. Infected people marry each other, and so the successive generations carry more and more gross mutation marks, not only are their heads distorted, but many of them already have, for example, three hands, until finally a pure-blooded genorzo is born, deceptively similar to the one that restarts the infection.

The game, which can be controlled in a familiar way, interestingly throws us into deep water almost immediately. At least it did that to me, probably because I set out to solve the mystery with characters above level 30. Thus, in the first battle, my team had to face pure-blooded genorzos, two human-sized degenerates, and even the cult’s mage. But I don’t want to kill the joke, because I wholeheartedly recommend it to everyone who likes dystopias.

-UrsaMaior-

Publisher: Owlcat Games

Developer: Owlcat Games

Style: RPG

Release: September 24, 2024.