Initially, I thought - "Well, I kinda like 40k, and I like to play CRPGs. This is a combination of both, so why not?"
What followed were really fun two weeks, in which I was warped (haha, get it?) into the world & setting, becoming completely immersed, and playing for at least 6 hours per day.
[h3] Some Thoughts/Feedback [/h3]
The setting & world building of the game are its biggest strengths. 40k provides a lot of material to work with, and does some of the heavy lifting, but Owl cat managed to integrate it into their narrative and make a believable world.
The story is mostly well written and so are the characters (both playable & not).
Sadly there isn't too much voice acting after the prologue. For me, it wasn't a big deal, but it may be for others. But when there is voice acting after the prologue (looking at you [spoiler] Trazyn [/spoiler]) it's so good and shows how much voice acting could lift this game to even higher heights.
While the combat can be fun, it is the weakest part in my opinion.
This is for two main reasons:
Easily exploitable (mid-game onwards) - For example, [spoiler] Argenta one rounding fights/95% of the bosses lategame [/spoiler].
Ship Combat - These are snoozefests which were badly executed. The idea of ship combat is nice, but it should've stayed an idea.
The star chart exploration is really tedious. The idea is cool on paper, but there could've been like ~20 less systems, with the interesting worlds that exist in the removed ones being moved to other systems.
The optimization was awful on my machine. I have pretty high specs, and the game doesn't look that visually stunning, yet my CPU/GPU sometimes spiked to 70-80 degrees Celsius. This rarely ever happens to me in more graphically demanding games, so it really shouldn't happen here. I had to lower the graphics and play at 90 fps (my monitor is 180hz) for the game to stay in the expected range of 55-60 degrees Celsius.
I encountered some recurring bugs while playing (even after downloading bugfix mods), however, they were mostly minor inconveniences that required doing a quicksave and loading it. Would I rather there be no bugs? Yeah of course, but at least I didn't encounter any major bug.
The DLCs are generally pretty good, and are well integrated into the main plot.
The 1st DLC had good story, companion & music.
The 2nd DLC had a passable story, a good companion, and banger music.
The 3rd DLC had a great story (especially whenever it is related to [spoiler] Trazyn [/spoiler]), passable at best (subjective, I know some people like them) companion, and banger music.
[h3] Bottom Line [/h3]
If you kinda like 40k (or you never engaged with it but the game looks cool to you), and you like CRPGs. then you should give this game a shot. If you're not sure if you'll like it, wait for a sale. The DLCs are, in my opinion, quite mandatory to have the most fun, so that's also a good reason to wait for a sale.
