It’s been a really good year for those who enjoy the Warhammer 40,000 universe. Right at the start of the year we got treated to Rogue Trader, a tactical RPG with deep roleplaying and an epic story. And then more recently we finally got to see Space Marine 2, an incredibly exciting shooter that is the sequel to a title that debuted way back in 2011. There were even a few other titles that were set within that universe, including an arcade flight simulation for the Nintendo Switch called Dakka Squadron and even a mobile game called Tacticus.
In terms of Rouge Trader, it ranked up there with some of the best titles that developer Owlcat Games has created, perhaps even surpassing Pathfinder: Kingmaker and Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous, depending on if people enjoy sci-fi or medieval fantasies. But Rogue Trader really held its own, offering over 100 hours of gameplay, especially if players explored every nook and cranny of the Koronus Expanse.
The new DLC, Void Shadows, is designed to take place during the main Rogue Trader campaign. That means that players need to have a save from before the final chapter of the game (before they enter the warp gate) in order to begin with Void Shadows. I was kind of hoping that Void Shadows would take place after the main campaign ended, but I understand why it was made this way. Void Shadows can now perfectly integrate into the main campaign right from the start. The biggest advantage of that would be getting earlier access to a new recruitable character, Kibellah, a Death Cult Assassin. Plus, all the events of Void Shadows, which takes place mostly within the Rogue Trader’s voidship, basically become side quests that occur spaced out with all of the other adventures within the main campaign.
Compared with the epic worlds-destroying main plot, Void Shadows is kind of pedestrian, although it touches the Rogue Trader more deeply. It begins with the Rogue Trader taking a bath in their swimming pool-like chamber, something that was cool but never used in the main campaign. Suddenly, blood begins pumping in through the vents and security rushes in to save you. The attack is apparently part of a Robin Hood kind of campaign where mutants are using the inequalities between upper and lower deck residents on the voidship to get the masses to rise up and mutiny.
The Rogue Trader and his retinue will have to venture deep into the bowels of the voidship to investigate this new threat and stomp it out for good. Players are also faced with seeing the poverty and harsh lives that thousands of workers lead onboard the ship. As I was playing as an iconoclast adherent in Void Shadows, seeing the dark side of my ship was difficult. At times it made me feel kind of like the Sheriff of Nottingham, and I had to remind myself that I was, in fact, the good guy of this story. I do wish there was an option to spend a few wealth points and make everyone’s lives onboard better. But at least I got the opportunity to make some small changes along the way and earn some more iconoclast points.
Being able to see and understand just how large your voidship is, roughly the size of a small city, was pretty amazing. You even have a railroad network complete with steam engines that run around delivering cargo to the lower decks. It’s interesting because the ship is the vehicle that takes you everywhere in the main campaign, but now you get to explore it as a core location, much more so than the few side quests set there prior to Void Shadows.
Kibellah is another reason that makes Void Shadows so compelling. As a Death Cult Assassin, she lives to kill enemies of the Emperor. They consult a magic tarot card deck which tells them who the Emperor wants dead. She, however, decides to personally become your bodyguard and protector (and personal assassin) after the bloody bath incident. All you have to do is accept Kibellah’s offer, and she can join your party in Void Shadows.
I started playing the DLC from a save right before the warp gate, so my party was extremely powerful at that point. But even so, Kibellah quickly became one of the most deadly (after spending an hour adding points to the character to bring her level up to par with the others.) She is designed for melee and giving her two swords is probably the best build for her, especially since you probably have lots of unused magic blades lying around. Her damage per strike is impressive, as she will one shot almost any common enemy. But Kibellah’s real power is the ability to inflict damage over time on anyone she even nicks in combat. We are talking about so much damage over time that it’s almost more than her initial strikes. Plus, her special powers allow her to execute that damage over time and turn it into instant damage, when necessary, often healing herself or providing other boosts at the same time.
And if you are worried about her mobility since she is not built around ranged weapons, don’t. Depending on how you build her out, she can have more than enough movement points to get almost anywhere on the field. She also has a unique leaping power that lets her jump several spaces and do a death from above type of attack, which is reset when she kills. So, once she has a turn, you have her running all around the field, leaping from place to place and leaving bloody trails everywhere. Those blood trails add to her powers too, as she can move through them without spending any new movement points. If the conditions are just right, she can sometimes clear out entire battlefields all by herself while everyone else just sits back and watches the show.
Kibellah also has an interesting backstory and personal history. She is fully voiced, sounds great and is romanceable too. All in all, she makes a perfect addition to your motley crew of deadly followers and eclectic allies in Void Shadows.
The Void Shadows DLC also adds some new elements to ship combat. Most notably is the addition of fighters and bombers which can be launched from the torpedo tubes on your voidship. Given how many enemies had fighters and how large your voidship is, it was kind of strange why it was not used as a kind of spacefaring aircraft carrier before now. You can have multiple squads deployed too, so if you want to lean into a build like that, feel free. The fighter squads can be extremely effective too. I often used them to finish off any annoying capital ships that survived the initial blast from my main cannons or to take down their own targets while my flagship was busy attacking elsewhere.
The Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader Void Shadows DLC really expands the core title while keeping the same excellent setting and flavor. It adds about 20 hours of gameplay along with the new ship mechanics and the extremely powerful melee fighter Kibellah. It’s really everything that you could want in a DLC. If you enjoyed the core Rogue Trader campaign, then for less than $20 you can make it even better with the addition of the Void Shadows DLC.
The Emperor would approve.