40K CRPG Rogue Trader reveals more companions and enemies

Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader is an upcoming CRPG from Owlcat Games, whose previous games Pathfinder: Kingmaker and Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous both came with entertaining companions to recruit and sometimes romance. Who knows whether there will be room for the latter in the 41st millennium (where there is only war, as 40K's tagline goes), but there will definitely be some recruiting going on.

Over a series of blog posts Owlcat has detailed some of the companions your voidship captain will be able to choose from. Most recently there was Cassia Orsellio the navigator, a three-eyed mutant like all members of the noble navigator Great Houses, whose gift lets her perceive Warpspace without going mad. Also, if she flips up the tiara hiding her Warp Eye anyone who looks into it will die, so she's got that going for her. Then there's Pasqal Haneumann, Magos Explorator, a cyborg tech-priest of the Adeptus Mechanicus who faces a schism among the faithful.

They join two companions previously revealed, Abelard the Seneschal and Idira Tlass the unsanctioned psyker, who were both crewmates of your predecessor seen in the trailer. We haven't seen any more of the Space Wolf or the Sister of Battle from the key art, however.

Owlcat's most recent news summary also rounds up three of the backgrounds players can choose from for their own character: a commissar, an ex-criminal, and a naval officer with a wonderful mustache. Then it shows off some of the enemies you'll be facing. First up are the aeldari, 40K's space elves, and it seems like we'll have opportunity to fight both the drukhari (sadomasochistic dark elf bondage pirates) and the asuryani (hyper-specialized high elves who live on Craftworld spaceships after the loss of their homeworlds). The asuryani are noted as coming from a Craftworld of Owlcat's own creation rather than an existing one.

Chaos will be another foe, with daemonettes of Slaanesh and horrors of Tzeentch shown alongside mutated Chaos spawn. To help fight them, we'll apparently get cyberzombie servitors and Sicarian Ruststalkers, who are elite assassins provided by our friends in the Adeptus Mechanicus, as well as an arsenal of bolter, lasguns, plasma weapons, flamers, and chainswords. Which is nice.

Concept art of several locations also sneaks in, with the bridge of our voidship, overgrown statuary in aeldari ruins, a manufactorum, and the world of Footfall being depicted. Footfall is a waystation in the Segmentum Obscurus on the edge of the Koronus Expanse, which will be Rogue Trader's setting, and seems like a potential hub or tutorial area to launch an expedition from.

No release date for Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader has been given yet, but there's an alpha planned for this year, with a beta following next year. If you'd like a 40K game to play in the meantime, here's every Warhammer 40,000 game, ranked.