Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader Devs “Would Love To Have” More LGBT Romance Options, But Won’t
BY
BEN SLEDGE
PUBLISHED 15 HOURS AGO
Owlcat Games developers sit down with TheGamer to talk discuss all things romance in its forthcoming Warhammer CRPG
Owlcat Games is intent on making the most immersive simulation of life in the 41st millennium. Rogue Traders live on the edge of the Imperium, skirting imperial laws thanks to the Warrants of Trade that they carry in their cathedral-esque spacecraft. They’re the perfect protagonist for a CRPG, seeing as they are (usually) more regular human than galactic super soldier, are joined by a cast of weirdos from across the universe, and abide by their own wavering morality more than a sense of loyalty to the God-Emperor of Mankind.
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Owlcat, however, wants to put a leash on that freedom to protect the lore and direct players to engage with Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader's narrative on a more substantive level. Whether this is limiting the clothes that your character can wear, as they explained in our previous interview, or weapons each character can use, the restrictions offer as much of an opportunity for roleplaying as the freedom of choice laid out in front of you.
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This also means that romance options are limited, much to the chagrin of alpha and beta players. Magos Explorator Pasqal Haneumann and Sister Argenta of the Adepta Sororitas, among others, are not romanceable, no matter the gender of your Rogue Trader. The restriction on the latter of the two particularly bothers players populating online forums, as more people are interested in shacking up with a sexy warrior nun than a weird half-robot dude who speaks to his rifles. Who’d have thunk it?
“Implementing the romances with the companions was the challenge of itself because we need to respect the lore and the restrictions that there are in the lore, and on the other hand, we wanted to make it exciting for the player,” explains narrative lead Olga Kelner. Again, it comes back to the lore, but it’s also about being true to the characters Owlcat has created.
“Sometimes it was for lore reasons,” Kelner continues. “Sometimes it was for character consistency because, for example, Seneschal Abelard [Werserian]. There are some things in the character's background and his relationship with your predecessor and in his relationship with his dead wife because he's a widower, that it just didn't feel right to implement romance because, it would go against the narrative, it wouldn't be true to his character.”
However, when I mention that gay men or players roleplaying a gay male Inquisitor are disappointed that there is only one, unpalatable romance option available to them – the only possibility is an alien terrorist, who you may not even recruit – the mood in the Discord call gets immediately frosty. Straight players, male or female, already have at least three options, while lesbian players suffer a similar issue to gay men with just one bisexual character to romance, an incredibly generic banker. At least she’s not a terrorist. No sooner have I asked whether Owlcat would implement more LGBT+ romances into the full game, executive producer Anatoly Shestov jumps in, audibly defensive, as if to shut down any perceived accusation of homophobia from Rogue Trader’s gay fans.
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“It's not about LGBTQ+ options,” he says. “It's about the narrative of the whole picture that we envisioned and want to elaborate on. We didn't see the romances as an option to point out any such ‘aspect’, we see any romance as our way to elaborate on the stories in the most personal way.
“For us internally, it's not the story of the gay person or straight person, it's a story of a Seneschal who lost his wife, or a story of a blood-soaked sociopath who can challenge his own thoughts, or a story of an entire species who can change its own perspective of the world through you. These are the things that we want to tell and we pick the best options to highlight the strength of the story – both in the models, in the portraits, in the voiceovers, in all of the aspects.
“It's not like we have a quota. No, we want to tell a strong story. We found the best possible in a given budget and time frame options to deliver it. And that's how we ended with the given set of the romances. Of course, any person of the team would love to have tens of additional romances. But at the same time, any person on the team would love to have, for example, additional companions like Kroot, everyone wants to have the Kroot mercenary.”
Shestov goes on to explain the process of game development, and that budget and salary constraints all contribute to cutting content. Owlcat prioritised the most immersive features, so naval combat in outer space – a very impressive system to have built from scratch – made the cut instead of more romances.
I can’t help but feel that he’s missing the point, though. Players have no problems with the fact that party members have their set sexualities, if anything it makes more sense and keeps them true to their characters. Players take umbrage with the fact that the already limited options are even further limited if you’re roleplaying as a gay Rogue Trader. The ‘we see past sexuality’ line doesn’t hold up when straight players are afforded the luxury to pick and choose who they romance and gay players are not.
When IRL Warhammer communities are so dominated by straight men, it would have been refreshing for LGBT+ players to see themselves better represented in the 40k universe in a game that promises to offer more roleplaying opportunities than any Games Workshop-affiliated title to date. As it stands, it feels like they’ve been overlooked and the developers are offering a blanket ‘we didn’t have enough money for a lesbian’ statement that seems to willfully misunderstand the issue. Owlcat implemented the romances, so it could have implemented more LGBT+ options by simply balancing the number of straight and LGBT+ party members to better reflect the post-gender society they inhabit.
It also seems a little hypocritical to say that romances must be driven by characters’ needs and befit their own personal stories, but also that these aren’t stories of gay characters or straight characters. A Drukhari terrorist can be gay as much as a straight Seneschal might not be ready for a relationship due to his grief. Characters’ sexualities are a part of them, and so long as romance is a part of Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader, their sexualities are important and worthy of discussion. After all, love is as much a part of life in the 41st millennium as war.
