Hello, I have been playing the game since launch in 2016; as of time of posting I have over 3,316.6 hours of play. Galactic Paragons itself contains content that can drastically change how people will play the game, I would place it on the same level as Utopia Expansion. Before going forward, I do have to point out that the review section of the DLC on Steam, has had several individuals who cannot separate the DLC from the drastic changes to leaders in the 3.8 patch. Though I can understand their sentiments, I cannot however understand them attacking people through the forums, or review bombing without thinking about the changes is honestly deplorable behavior.

With that out the way, onto the review.


Galactic Paragons & the accompanying 3.8 Patch had a singular goal. That goal was to expand the importance of leaders, I.E. make them matter. In the patch a new government system was added, The Empire’s council. In the game you will have 3 seats to fill, the ruler, minster of defense and the head of research. With the DLC you will gain three attentional seats to your empire, each one accompanying a civic. If you obtain more civic(s) through special circumstances, you will get more council slots. These positions will allow each leader to give the Empire a special bonus depending on the civic. One gripe I have with this is that it kind of makes me want to use portraits that have more then two options. Hopefully the Custodians will add more artwork to these species portraits.

Speaking of civics, the DLC adds several civics. These civics ranges from increasing the rate in which your leaders earn experience to roleplay like civics such as declaring a crusade. More civic options are always nice to have though I feel like we’re getting to the point in the game that there are so many choices for civics but not enough slots to pick them.

There are two additional tradition trees included in Galactic Paragons. One for improving your leaders and another improving the agendas. Speaking of which, Agendas have been reworked in 3.8. They are now actually useful and a much more pleasant change. Just like civics, I feel like at some point down the road, there may be a system to be implemented to allow us to at least one additional tree.

The heroes, with the rise of the importance of leaders, they have included unique characters and reworked older characters from the other DLCs. They now have unique portraits with set traits. I do have to point that some people are angry over this. I can understand that, but they don’t seem to understand the difference between making set characters and having to create literal thousands of art assets to make characters truly unique. Though that would be cool for every species portrait to have that much support, like the Human ones, but it is not possible due to the fact this DLC is sold at $15 and they have to make a return on investment. So, I feel like this is a nice comprise. With this DLC, you will pick what traits your leaders will have with each level up, if you do not have this DLC, the game will act normally and assign random traits to the leaders upon level up.

The Origin, I will not spoil this origin, I will state that if you like Warhammer 40,000, you will apricate this origin. It has several endings and if you have utopia, you can have more decisions. All around a very fun roleplay origin.
All in all, I would recommend this DLC as it adds a lot of flavor and mechanical elements to the game.

Rouge Trader by Owlcat Games is one of the better games of 2023 which in a board since it’s not a difficult thing to achieve. However, it feels unfinish or straight up not play tested at stages. This is the first game I have played by Owlcat and it makes me wary of their future products simply because the nature of the launch of Rouge Trader and finding out how their other games have launched. I shouldn’t have to do that, when you pay for a product, it should be finished none of this waiting for patches to play the game.

It is probably one of the best story games of 2023, the game centers around a space captain in the grim dark future of Warhammer 40,000. You’re basically task to chart an expanse of stars for Humanity as charged with being a Rouge Trader. You have a lot of freedom and can do a surprising number of things when it comes to the story level. Things I haven’t seen in other story RPG games. And to my utter surprise you even be a good guy in Warhammer 40k, and it feels very interesting as it feels like you’re a noble light in a galaxy that fallen into darkness and despair as if everyone has lost common sense. (Reasonable Marines meme) It really makes me want to see more.

If you have played XCOM: Enemy Unknown (2012) or its sequel or any other game similar to that, then that is the base fundamental gameplay of the game. It has this one more turn type of feeling that keeps me wanting to play. I honestly feel like the action cam from those games would make the combat feel more alive in Rouge Trader. The other gameplay mostly reveals a rather convoluted leveling process where you can practically do any type of build you can think of however there are major drawbacks.

• Buggy game — There are segments of the game that are beyond buggy or the only way to procced is to bug out the game. The later acts are rather bug ridden and it ruins the experience. The game feels like it was not play tested.
  
  
• Warp Navigation — This system becomes rather tiresome real quick when you like to explore and the points to make exploration safer for travel is rather finite but how it is explained to the player doesn’t feel great to play. Like it feels like that one uncle at family gathers that you know but don’t know how its related and feel good to be around them. Also, if you have spent all your points and you want to go to another system that doesn’t have path towards, well you’re out of luck. This system needs to be reworked since the game is going to be patched worked into a better game.
  
  
• Text & Voice — The game constantly switches from voice acting parts to text base, this is really annoying to the ninth degree. Pick one or the other, do not flip flop between the two. Worst still is that this happens randomly and gives the underlying feeling this game is not finished if not outright cheap. Smaller gamers were able to do it, why can’t this game have it. The voice acting is really good for when the game has it. Personally, I like hearing Pasqal when he talks, that blend of robotic tunes in his voice makes him sound better. It is rather annoying when you have to read some text when the game is playing its rather loud but good music. It’s distracting and it devalues the work as a whole.
  
  
• missing artwork — When talking to a large number of characters, even minor characters do not have art for their talking portions. Again, it adds to the feeling that this game is unfinished.

I would love to give this game a recommendation, it can easily earn it for me when I barely give them out but for the price paid for the game, I expected a more finished experience. I may update this review later once the game is patched but in this age of everything launching unfinish or playtest is becoming tiresome.