Owlcat just reused Pathfinder visuals to shave off development time, there really isn't anything else to this.
I don't think that's all there is to it. This
is in fact a more light-hearted take on the Warhammer 40k universe (j
ust like the original Rogue Trader edition of the Warhammer 40k tabletop game was). It's a swashbuckling space adventure where you play a powerful aristocrat with special privileges and a retinue of ~diverse~ companions.
So it's not like the content of the game is going to be super duper grimdark and the graphics won't fit. The graphics will match the content. These are the kinds of stories Owlcat likes to tell.
Why is it any time someone tries to justify lore rape, missing the point of 40k or just generally doing the wrong things with the settings, The original version of Rogue Trader becomes this hazy thing that can be applyied to everything.
Most of you aren't old enough to remember Rogue Trader, and I'm sure Shillitron is banking on that. BUT I AM. In 1978 I went to that shitty little rundown shop called Games Workshop in Hammersmith to go buy Traveller. The venerable big black books. Years later I returned because I thought the space men minis looked really cool and wanted to see what the fuss was about this space war game thing. In the original version of Rogue Trader 1st edition 40k (not the actual Rogue Trader TTRPG this is ACTUALLY based on) there was a consistent punk/heavy metal asthetic. Even at it's most comedic, it wasn't rounded edges and over saturated colours, It was a heavy metal album. It was still dirty, grimy, dark, and with a muted colour pallet. It was never light hearted, it was never safe, it was never whatever the fuck Pathfinder is. The aesthetic of this game is all wrong. And it doesn't even look like Rogue Trader so don't dare use that as an excuse. It's blatantly wrong. Rogue Trader wasn't really a game, or a setting. It was a collection of nebulous ideas shat out to sell a range of science fiction minis and then later refined into second edition. Where the setting became more fleshed out, the rules were actually decent (if casual to the average historical wargamer), and the "hobby" started forming.
Owlcat wanted a more cartoony and less mature version of 40k. They can recycle old assets and they can then market it to the same audience who is ready to get fooled into paying to alpha test a game and have their feedback ignored for the third time. Anyone who tries to bring up "muh Rogue Trader" is going to have to deal with a grumpy old man who has no time for your lies and actually read that shitty fucking verbal diahrea of a rule book.
Edit:
Just to really prove my point, one need only look at the front cover of the Rogue Trader 1st edition rules.
What part of this image in any way looks lighthearted? Exagerated? Sure. In the same way a lot of science fiction books, metal album cover art, 2000AD covers and more had exaggerated and unrealistic line art. But it didn't have an oversaturated and overly colourful pallet or rounded edges meant to attract a wider audience.
Compare and contrast with screenshots from the video game.
They are not the same. So stop bringing up Rogue Trader as the excuse for every last bit of crappy shit that GW or companies making Warhammer products produce. Everything is clean, rounded, and colourful. There's no sense of weight, of 10'000 years come and gone. The last few years of a dark age before complete collapse. It looks shit and half assed. No "It's an alpha" is not an excuse when they are preparing this for public consumption.
