Overview
- Owlcat announced an optional PC launcher for Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader on Monday, June 22, to gather news, patches and add-ons for Rogue Trader and the studio’s other CRPGs.
- Steam and the Rogue Trader subreddit flooded the studio with criticism, producing roughly 1,800 comments on the announcement post and an initial post that registered zero likes.
- Players reported the launcher sometimes blocked the game from starting, consumed extra CPU and memory, and left an opt-out setting that still ran a background process.
- Owlcat community manager Starrok said the background process was a temporary workaround so Steam would record playtime, and the studio rolled the launcher back about 19 hours later on Tuesday, June 23, reverting the game to the previous patch and apologizing.
- The swift reversal restored some goodwill but recalled a 2023 incident when fan pressure forced Owlcat to remove a data-collection tool, underlining ongoing trust and discovery tensions between the studio and its players.