Warhammer 40k Rogue Trader developer announces its own launcher, but players are already "opting out"

It's the news that nobody wanted to hear. Owlcat Games, the studio behind the likes of Pathfinder, Warhammer 40k Rogue Trader, and forthcoming CRPGs The Expanse: Osiris Reborn and Warhammer 40k Dark Heresy, is launching its own, um, launcher. As one of the standard bearers for classic turn-based gameplay over the past decade, it's great to see it get more widespread recognition for its work in the genre. However, to paraphrase Uncle Ben, with increased popularity comes great responsibility, and Owlcat has decided to wield that responsibility irresponsibly.

Listen, nobody wants another launcher. Call of Duty's launcher is terrible. Blizzard's Battle.net is no better. Ubisoft Connect might be the worst of all. I'm just glad that I don't have to sign into the EA app to play Apex Legends any more. It doesn't matter whether you produce competitive shooters or games worthy of our list of the best RPGs or a

However, Owlcat has decided that its best course of action going forwards is to keep all its games in one place. It just so happens that one place is the most unpopular place in all of gaming. Yes, the next time you want to play through Warhammer 40k Rogue Trader, you may have to go through the Owlcat launcher.

The idea came about from market research, Owlcat says in the announcement. It turns out that a "surprisingly large portion" of Pathfinder 2 players hadn't heard of Rogue Trader. "Therefore," the message reads, "we felt we really needed an effective cross-promotion tool for all our titles."

However, Owlcat is aware that this won't be a popular decision, so is pre-emptively managing expectations. Firstly, it says that it will slowly roll out the launcher to avoid it being "clumsy and annoying." It wants the tool to be "as unobtrusive as possible," there will be no mandatory registration involved, and it won't collect any data from your PC.

Players who are signed up for the current Warhammer 40k Dark Heresy alpha test will also be the guinea pigs for this. If you pre-ordered a special edition of the game, you'll be able to test the launcher's functionality ahead of time. As well as viewing all of Owlcat's games (including those it publishes but doesn't develop, like Rue Valley), you'll be able to access links to all of its social media pages as well as news and important announcements.

You'll also be able to buy, install, or launch any game from the launcher, "regardless of platform." However, there is a silver lining: the launcher isn't mandatory.

If you're playing an Owlcat game through Steam, you'll have the option to launch the game directly, bypassing the new tool completely.

As anticipated, many players are expressing negative sentiments already. "So let me get this straight, your [sic] going to force us to download a program we may not want to use, and take up More space on our hard drives than your game needs to, just so you can shove ads for other products down people's throats?" one angry player asks in the Steam comments. "Consider me opting out!" says another.

However, other players are approaching the news with an open mind. "If you add a mod manager system into the launcher that works for all games [I'd] totally use that," says another player, before adding it's, "nice having the option to not use it."

Mod manager or not, testing the waters with alpha users seems like a sensible soft launch for the Owlcat launcher. I wouldn't expect a glowing response from the community, but perhaps if enough people mention a mod manager, it could happen.