Warhammer 40K’s satire shines in Rogue Dealer

Video games Workshop retail workers have a tough job, from low pay to constant unreasonable targets from higher administration, so it’s with all of the love and respect that I inform you in regards to the animated lad that my 14-year-old mates and I used to make enjoyable of for liberal use of the phrase “If a Area Marine walked in right here proper now…” It was at all times accompanied by wildly enthusiastic gesticulation meant to convey absolutely the unit-tude of mentioned Area Marines (8 toes tall in Warhammer 40,000’s lore). I deliver this up as a result of it completely sums up the thorny difficulty behind advertising these yoked stormtroopers: Area Marines are very costly for one thing so small, forcing Video games Workshop to make the legend of those tiny plastic troopers tower over the fact.

And what a legend it’s. The Horus Heresy e-book collection at the moment consists of over 60 fats paperbacks price of lore. There’s far an excessive amount of nuance to unpack right here, but it surely’s truthful to say that when writers spend that lengthy exploring one thing, they must take it fairly significantly, particularly in the event that they wish to maintain their readers hooked. To be clear, 40K is a captivating, enjoyable, inventive, huge, and sometimes extraordinarily intelligent setting. However it’s additionally — at the very least as just lately as 2021, in keeping with its guardian firm — explicitly, deliberately satirizing the very faction that the overwhelming majority of its lore appears so fascinated with. “Satire is folks as they’re; romanticism, folks as they wish to be,” wrote the novelist Daybreak Powell. As 40K grows and grows, it’s turning into tougher to disclaim that the portrayal of the Imperium is at the very least considerably aspirational.

Picture: Owlcat Video games by way of Polygon

A fast primer: Humanity’s overwhelming presence within the 40K setting takes the form of the Imperium of Man, the place staunch xenophobia, senseless zealotry, and outright hostility towards social or technological progress are among the many highest virtues — a literal “cult of custom”. Atypical people dwell in cramped “Hives,” toiling away till demise, at which level they’re repurposed as tasty, nutritious “corpse starch.” The Imperial Guard, humanity’s most quite a few navy power, is finest identified for using the Zapp Brannigan maneuver, i.e., throwing infinite our bodies at an issue till it types itself out. As such, particular person human life is lower than nugatory. Terra’s extra elite navy are the Area Marines. As 2000 AD’s Decide Dredd is to regulation enforcement, so are the Area Marines to the idea of the Ubermensch — a grimly satirical warning in regards to the pursuit of perceived bodily perfection and supreme energy.

Of the 36 playable factions in 40K, round half (17) are of the Imperium in some capability, with an extra 9 being their direct foil in Chaos, leaving simply 10 to separate between the a number of nonhuman species that populate this mind-bogglingly large universe. Sci-fi can range wildly in taste, however a unifying thread is that nice science fiction is sort of insatiably curious. 40K completely shines when it mocks the staunch anti-curiosity of its human protagonists. However as the corporate has steadily grown to worth gross sales over creative intent, that lack of curiosity too typically appears to be adopted by Video games Workshop itself.

Picture: Owlcat Video games by way of Polygon

This unbelievable look on the timeline of 40K, and the way it moved from satire to one thing virtually resembling celebration, places it like this: “Because the setting grew extra mainstream, Area Marines’ [portrayal] as noble warrior monks turned increasingly more distinguished, leading to a world the place these abused, illiberal, mass-murdering youngster troopers are solely ever portrayed from the Imperium’s standpoint,” and, within the overwhelming majority of official paintings, “as real heroes.” Even the official web site categorizes nonhuman armies as “the Xenos menace.” Look a little bit nearer, and it’s simple to see the inherent satire in pictures of Primarch Roboute Guilliman with a Christ-like halo of sunshine shining from the background. However except you already know what you’re on the lookout for, these items appears to be like suspiciously just like the very propaganda that it’s making enjoyable of.

This isn’t to say, after all, that modern-day Video games Workshop has misplaced its sense of satire, and most definitely not its humorousness. As we’ve seen time and time once more within the video games trade, shareholders misunderstanding or simply straight-up not valuing the inventive course of is a depressingly prevailing theme — it’s simple for nuance to get crushed below the pursuit of simple profitability. The rule of cool sells plastic, not troublesome themes. Plus, 40K is a wargame. In a setting that requires fixed battle, factions that assume in absolutes change into mandatory. However that’s the place video video games just like the current, wonderful CRPG Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Dealer are available. It’d be an enormous anticlimax to finish a recreation of 40K with a dialog earlier than it even begins, however because the setting is allowed to unfold its wings in a brand new style, a few of that basic satire begins to flourish once more.

Picture: Owlcat Video games by way of Polygon

40K is, above all else, ridiculous, and Rogue Dealer has enjoyable with it with out shedding any of the campy grindhouse stuff that grimdark excels at. Characters converse in wealthy, baroque prose, directly excellently written and virtually indecipherable to anybody not already indoctrinated into their weird non secular neo-feudalism. You don’t even have to go away your individual ship to come across dehumanizing class construction, and every of your erstwhile associates is comically nefarious sufficient to be the primary villain in every other setting. In Baldur’s Gate 3, for instance, the evil path requires a deliberate, lengthy try to stray into monstrous territory. Right here, you may have a number of crew members executed within the first few hours with out breaking character.

Rogue Dealer isn’t even the primary recreation to drag this off just lately. Warhammer 40,000: Darktide, regardless of a rocky launch, is shaping up as a superb successor to the Vermintide collection, and portrays the horrific satire of existence in 40K’s horrendous hive cities masterfully. Loading display quotes are such pointed satire you’d must have by accident super-glued your eyes shut constructing fashions to overlook them, with traces like “A small thoughts is a tidy thoughts,” “Blessed are the illiberal,” and “Responsibility is important, understanding isn’t.” It appeared only some quick years in the past that the glut of Warhammer video games felt like a punchline. Now, the scope and breadth these video games provide are beginning to really feel like a greater medium to painting probably the most full model of 40K than the tabletop recreation itself.