In life, they say nothing is certain but death and taxes. Well, I think we need an addendum to that, it should really be death, taxes, and a new Warhammer video game. Games Workshop loves to license the Warhammer IP out, and Warhammer 40,000: Dark Heresy is the latest in a long line of games in the Warhammer universe. Coming from Cyprus-based developer Owlcat Games, Warhammer 40,000: Dark Heresy serves as a spiritual successor to Owlcat’s 2023 Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader. It continues the cRPG roots of the studio’s prior games, while adding in a investigation element not present in Rogue Trader.
Choice and Consequence
You play as an Acolyte of The Inquisition, an organization within the 40,000 universe tasked with investigating, and eliminating, heresy throughout the God-Emperor’s domain. The beta opens up after the prologue of the game, where you are being interrogated for the death of an Inquisitor after a mission goes awry. It is hinted that in the full game, you will actually have the power to choose between multiple options as to how that prologue mission turns out, and maybe the Inquisitor could survive at the cost of the relic you were sent to procure.
That is the crux of all of Owlcat’s games: player choice. The choices the player makes will have a real, tangible impact on the story, and it appears that Warhammer 40,000: Dark Heresy is no different. Once through the opening few hours, exploring the starting location, you’re tasked with deciding which case to pursue first, and it’s not-so-subtly indicated that picking one will have an impact on the other mission.
Reading, More Reading, and A Little Combat
Given this is a beta, the game is not complete, and progress won’t carry over, I decided to pick one case, see that through, and use that as a basis for this preview. I chose the case in the Lucid Palace, a location full of rich nobles where an assassination was rumored to take place. Throughout the investigation, my job was to follow leads and uncover clues, eventually making use of a web-like interface where all the evidence and determinations were tracked until I finally decided to file my report.
In the beta, there is no voice acting, but it is my understanding there will be full voice acting at launch, whenever that may be. I also ran into a few bugs, and a few quest objectives that weren’t quite clear. A lot of my time investigating was reading. The reading is incredibly lore-dense, so if you are familiar with the 40,000 universe, you will be at a much greater advantage than I was; that’s not to say they don’t explain things, as there is an in-game glossary for terms, but even still, it’s a lot to learn.
Throughout my ten-plus hours playing the beta, I can say with certainty that this game is going to be lengthy. I only handled the one case in that time, and my characters only reached level 5 when the level cap was 25 though, that may be attributed to the limited amount of combat I engaged in. As noted, there is a lot of reading in this game. Reading, running around, finding clues, and putting the pieces together. In total, I think I engaged in maybe five combat encounters, which is a small number, but given this is only the first act and very early, there’s a chance they become more frequent. There’s also a likelihood that I chose the case with fewer combat encounters out of the two options.
Whatever the reason for the infrequent combat, I have to say that combat is tough but fun. There are occasionally bonus objectives, and you are given special rewards for completing them. One early one took me a solid couple of hours of reloading to correctly beat the bonus objective. At first, I was frustrated, but the more I practiced, the close I got and more I learned the combat system. This knowledge made future encounters easier and more fun.
Because this is a cRPG, there is also a large roster of party members that you can recruit. I did not see all the available ones, and I know more will be in the full game, but they are a great complement for one another. One character throws up a shield, another gives an extra turn to your damage deal, then you long range attack swoops in for clean up; that sort of thing. Their stories aren’t too fleshed out yet, some literally just joining with a pop-up saying a story will be added in the full release. But even still, there’s great diversity amongst classes and species, so I can only imagine what tales will be told.
Huge Potential for Those Invested
On the whole, I enjoyed my time with Warhammer 40,000: Dark Heresy, despite knowing very little about the universe. It didn’t entirely sell me on going back to the full release simply because of the deluge of video game releases, but my interest has risen from, “Please just focus on The Expanse: Osiris Reborn” to “Maybe I will give Rogue Trader a shot.” That said, sci-fi cRPG fans, Warhammer 40,000 fans, and Rogue Trader fans (provided they don’t mind the missing space battles) will want to keep a close eye on this one.
