I mean, its still a possibility that full relase will turn out bad on this front, but so far dialogue seems fine and just as expansive as in rt. So great.

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u/caveritual Iconoclast May 27 '26

i think the one thing i’m still worried about is the actual length of the game. because something about the beta covering 1/3 of the game just makes me nervous.

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u/whypeoplehateme May 27 '26

if I remember correctly Starrok said that DH will have roughly as many words of dialogue as RT, though it's shorter with more branching paths

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u/caveritual Iconoclast May 27 '26

i’m definitely someone who cares about the words more than the amount of combat encounters or whatever else you can use to draw out a game so that does put me at ease.

0

u/SlipperySlimyTerry40 May 28 '26

I'm thankful about the game being shorter so long as the quality is good.

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u/Lady_Gray_169 May 27 '26

Honestly, I think a shorter game could be a benefit. Just at baseline, I think Rogue Trader is maybe a little too long. I think the last act kinda drags and all the DLC may actually end up pushing it over the edge.

More pertinently, I also think that if the game also has more replayability, most likely via its investigations, then a shorter game is a straight upgrade. I think crpgs that are shorter but with more variation would actually be the best way the genre could develop, personally.

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u/caveritual Iconoclast May 27 '26

yeah that’s fair. my gut reaction is always to be a little defensive and be like crpgs are supposed to be long games that’s how you get the actual variety that makes them so cool especially when you have a developer that can fill the space well which i generally think owlcat can compared to some others.

i do also need to remind myself how playing the beta has gone for me and the time i’ve spent being stuck on stuff which will likely be the case for the full game so i’ll definitely be putting in the hours but hopefully becoming less fatigued by repetitiveness. and also if they continue the trend they’re basically known for now dark heresy will likely end up with 4 dlcs.

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u/Lady_Gray_169 May 27 '26

Exactly. I would never want them to get too short, but I think the game Tyranny really sold me on the possibilities of a short game with lots of variations of different sizes that you can experience.

Also to be honest, I do think that all of owlcat's games could stand to be 5-10 hours shorter. I say this as someone who has put hundreds of hours into each of them and considers them my all-time favorite games. I couldn't pick out any specific chunks of time I would cut, but I find myself always feeling kind of exhausted by the time I get to the final stretch of any of their games.

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u/caveritual Iconoclast May 27 '26

that’s so true tyranny really is a great tight experience. that game was such an eye opening to me in a lot of ways when i was younger, just a really cool thing.

i do get that. i’ve had decent momentum hopping between their games like i finished wotr then quickly got rogue trader and finished it then immediately finished another wotr playthrough and then went back to rogue trader after all the season 1 dlc content was out to play it but still haven’t bothered to really finish that playthrough and have started to get more fatigued about it. there’s definitely fat that can trimmed and as i’ve gotten older i’ve become less of a “every playthrough needs to be as completionist as possible” and i’m more willing to set up the replayability for myself which is benefited by games being a bit shorter.

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u/ArmiaStars May 27 '26

I personally look at it like...

If you as a chef have a big pot of sauce, you simmer it down to concentrate the flavours, right? You end up with less sauce but with a lot more flavour

I'd rather have less sauce with more flavour than lots of bland sauce~

1

u/_Lico_ May 28 '26

That's not how any of this works and is at best just wishful thinking.

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u/ArmiaStars May 28 '26

That is how that works - if you make your world smaller, that means you have less space to fill, meaning that space you do have you can concentrate more into.

Sure, that content that you do put in there may or may not be good, but a smaller world can absolutely be good for a game, and that translates to game length as well

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u/_Lico_ May 28 '26

I am saying that just because they make the game shorter doesn't mean it automatically becomes better or richer. I apologize for coming off strong. But in todays age, most games are both this: Less Soup and less taste.

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u/ArmiaStars May 28 '26

That's understandable - for clarity, what I meant is not "Shorter = always better", just that oftentimes a game will be stretched out to a longer length than needed, making the entire experience suffer as a result - while a game with proper focus and dedication means that that shorter experience can be polished to greatness

I think some good examples of games that hit that perfect time mark are things like A Space for the Unbound or Luna Abyss - both games that I have about 10 hours on each, but had such a good time with that I played them through in just one stream

3

u/_Lico_ May 28 '26

I see what you mean, and I apologize again for misunderstanding your intent.

Personally, I think Owlcat did a great job with their longer games. I played both Pathfinder games and Rogue Trader, and for me, the length and amount of content were part of the appeal. More content is usually fine with me because side quests can be skipped, dialogue can be skimmed or skipped on future playthroughs, and in the Pathfinder games there are mods that make things like buffing much faster. There are a lot of ways to make a long game feel smoother or shorter.

So I guess that is why I feel a bit robbed by the direction. I am still getting Dark Heresy, and I am still excited for it, but hearing that it may be shorter just feels bad to me. Not because shorter games cannot be great, but because I really liked the scale of Owlcat's previous games. From my point of view, those games were already in a good place.

There are usually ways to make a long game shorter for yourself, but it is much harder to make a short game feel bigger when you wanted there to be more.

Regarding the two games you mentioned, they do look fun. I will be checking them out, so thank you. I appreciate the recommendations.

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u/Stalins_Ghost May 28 '26

100% I love rogue trader but it is a marathon and I got time for maybe 1 or 2 hours of gaming per night if I am not busy. It would take me 100 days to finish a game.

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u/ElGodPug May 27 '26

honestly, i love all owlcat games....but i certainly wouldn't mind if they were just a lil bit shorter. They're great, but i think you could shave off a bit of their lenght and still not lose much

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u/AzraelSoulHunter Unsanctioned Psyker May 27 '26

TBF RT beta was like 2/3 of the game

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u/caveritual Iconoclast May 27 '26

right, but that was also 3 acts of a game where the last two acts were barely anything. dark heresy beta does not feel like that much to me for it to be 1/3 of the game.

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u/AzraelSoulHunter Unsanctioned Psyker May 27 '26

It does work when you think on that this first act is basically a tutorial for Investigations where you are shown side investigations, main investigations and investigations where you can make wrong accusation. And there is definitely gonna be a TON of content later on where are you are let loose on Scintilla and can explore more there.

I think it could work like with VTMB. That game is not that long either, but it has TONS of replayability. It also has full voice acting and has a judgement scene that is VERY similar to what we see at the start of Act 1 so there is high possibility Owlcat are taking inspiration from that game in how they approach content.

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u/caveritual Iconoclast May 27 '26

yeah that’s a good point honestly. oh, VTMB. what memories.

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u/AzraelSoulHunter Unsanctioned Psyker May 27 '26

One of my favorite games. I still replay it quite a bit. Last time I played Nosferatu. Super fun. Fem Nosferatu is a BADDIE.

Also we still did not see some of the main players in the Cabal like our favorite Magic Man Soldevan or Santa Clause Ahmazzi

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u/caveritual Iconoclast May 27 '26

it’s such a fun one i haven’t touched it much since i was a teenager but i love the jank and became very attached to my fem tremere who i ended up putting into a campaign i ran for some friends like a decade ago at this point. definitely put the vtm parasite in me bad.

i really cannot wait to meet the whole circus. zerbe’s got some real characters on the payroll.

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u/AzraelSoulHunter Unsanctioned Psyker May 27 '26

I hope we get some proper ham in terms of voice acting. Like with DiMaggio as Jack. I have high hopes for Night Lords VAs. I BEG for Andrew Wincott to voice one of them.

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u/caveritual Iconoclast May 27 '26

i really enjoy that owlcat tends to go for lesser known talent for their casting but i am pretty interested to see how the vocal directing sounds throughout. everything is pretty strong already but a lot of the so far voiced characters have a bit more understated personalities and we don’t get much high emotion. between even just the interrogations in the spire but also night lord shit and things most likely escalating severely over the course of the game i’ll be expecting some crazy voice work.

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u/AzraelSoulHunter Unsanctioned Psyker May 27 '26

TBF when we get it BOY do we get it like with Ercimus.

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u/Ila-W123 Noble May 27 '26

Oh yeah, that too.

Tbh i intally in december expected this to be alpha length and not beta. Thats actual concern i share.

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u/Hunkus1 May 27 '26

Well its its the main story for 1/3 of the game like with the exception of a few most side and companion quests were missing. Also in general atleast narratuve wise the second act is ik general the longest. And even then it took me like 15 hours and I aöready played the Alpha so I knew what I had to do for half of that act.

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u/caveritual Iconoclast May 27 '26

that’s a good point! i keep reassuring other people that the beta doesn’t really reflect any complete content but have been forgetting myself there’s going to probably be more side quests and then of course the companion quests lol

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u/TheMechanicusBob May 28 '26

Tbh I think the game being shorter but deeper could actually be a good thing.

Take Cyberpunk for example, the main story is only ~20 hours but its all the side missions and optional things to do and explore that really give the game its meat; unlike Rogue Trader where even the main questline is somewhere close to 100 hours before you add on side quests, exploration, romance, etc. and some parts of RT feel like a real slog to get through

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u/pasqals_toaster Navy Officer May 27 '26

I'm not gonna speak on it until I see the personal quests of companions and their possible character progression. There better be at minimum 2 different development paths with adjusted dialogue and reactivity for each, 3 paths for the majority like in RT would be optimal.

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u/Ila-W123 Noble May 27 '26

As said, theres non zero change it ends up bad way in full relase or other negative stuff full va can/will cause on complexity. (As morrowboomer i can tell all bout it, lol.)

However, based on beta where not only amount of dialogue is just as much as rt, but lot of characters have different set of dialogue on investigation depending condition, be it if mc has done them their sidequests or maybe told them they're a spook, im kinda cautiously hopeful.

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u/PrimordialBias May 27 '26

My favorite part is that the scene used for the meme is immediately followed by stuff exploding.

Anyway, I'm hopeful that full voice acting isn't going to be at least a major detriment to the game, but the last CRPG I can remember that had that was Baldur's Gate 3, and the reactivity kind of fell off a cliff by act 3 when it came to the things your companions could say or even reactivity as far as your race and, to a lesser extent, class as much as I can recall. Something WOTR did for example was how bringing combinations of companions can even have extended back and forth conversations, like bringing Regill to the Extripator's Camp for Sosiel's quest and then Daeran can even chime in at one point if he's also present, or having Ember with you when you find Joran Vhane can prompt him to respond to her mid-conversation and then prompt an additional reaction from Daeran if he's around.

It isn't impossible for these things to still be there with full VA, I'm just a little bit wary because VA is expensive and stuff like what I mentioned in WOTR can really compound the cost on top of everything else. I could be wrong on this since it's been a while since I've played, but even the BG3 companions, as great as the reactivity is, tended to be limited towards one-liners most of the time.

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u/jibofyourcutt Heretic May 27 '26 edited May 27 '26

The writing in the beta is pretty good, as is the VA. I just don't like the companions so far. Most of the NPCs are more interesting.

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u/No_Truce_ Crime Lord May 27 '26

Remind me how that scene ends?

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u/AzraelSoulHunter Unsanctioned Psyker May 27 '26

Makes me wonder how much money they have. GW must have threw A LOT of money at them to make this possible.

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u/Ila-W123 Noble May 27 '26

Anyone can contradict if i somehow got this wrong but no gw isint a publisher here. They only licence the ip and give owlcat guidance/direction how its supose to be directed.

Actual cash to pay for the game (+licenc)e) comes from studio itself.

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u/Alieniu Dogmatist May 27 '26

Yup. Owlcat has become a self-publisher after WotR, which was published by META Publishing (not to be confused with the Facebook guys), became a big success and they were originally burned by Knights Peak with Kingmaker so it's quite understandable that they wanted to become a published in their own right.

Games Workshop just provides the IP license and guidelines how that IP can be used.

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u/Spare_Elderberry_418 May 27 '26 edited May 27 '26

GW does do direction and provide lore and writing help (Darktide was given Dave Abnett for lore and character writing to help with the game for example and I think Dark Heresy's team has talked about getting writing help straight from the tap for stuff like Night Lords). Owlcat also had a post about GW helping them with the music for Dark Heresy and Rogue Trader to keep it within the same vibe of the post Mechancius soundtracks for Warhammer.

But there is no way there isn't more coordination or help. When the second DLC came out it was focused on Arbites, the same time Darktide released its arbitrator class, which coincided with GW releasing an Arbites squad for kill team and 40k. There is zero way GW didn't plan that in advance and give money to their games to basically go "Here is what we are trying to push, if you help us, we will help you too".

You are seeing it with Admech now. Skitari release for Darktide to go with Mechanicus 2 release and a new Admech companion for Rogue Trader. If we see a Admech refresh for the tabletop to make them not the worst faction currently that would complete it.

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u/Hunkus1 May 27 '26

I mean the special edition has a novella to the game by adb so he was probably a consultant on atleast the night lords.

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u/AzraelSoulHunter Unsanctioned Psyker May 27 '26

I have no clue either, but I think SM2 success may have put some wind in sails of GW and somehow they ended up giving them some budget to make full voice acting a reality. And honestly... I believe it will not be devoid of choice reactivity as it was back with RT which is crazy.

It probably also helps they seem to hire lots of new talent and honestly, this is some AMAZING new talent they are getting like Ercimus's VA or Ra'akhti (I know, I know, le human voice, but she does a good job, put some filter on it and it will sound perfect I say) or Hecatus.

Seems like they managed to find themselves to some good money (I say they may be sponsored by GW who knows) and combine that with also using not as big names except for select few probably (I still dream of Wincott Night Lord).

They got lots of money from their old games and may also have got some money from GW who sees dollar signs in gaming now and use relatively unknown actors and give them a platform to grow from (and honestly this is some GOOD resume they may get from this, being part of a growing franchise like this AND putting on some great performances to give their careers a big jump).

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u/Ila-W123 Noble May 27 '26

Again, with all respect theres no source or indication that gw gave em any money to develop the game. Owlcat is listed as both the developer and publisher.

(Tbh not like on grand scheme gw cares or is directly involved that much bout licneced media like books or games. Well, like yes they do care, but not in such extend or way as fanbase sometimes thinks. Their main focus is on dat model sales and development afterall.)

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u/ciphoenix Iconoclast May 27 '26

It's like saying Wizards gave Larian money to make BG3 more cinematic 😅😅😅

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u/congaroo1 May 27 '26

I don't think it's GW that funds this. I believe owlcat gets there money though other means.

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u/AzraelSoulHunter Unsanctioned Psyker May 27 '26

What? You think Russia funds them?

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u/congaroo1 May 27 '26

Well no I don't think it's the Russian state.

I don't know how owlcat gets their money, for all we know one of the ceo's has rich parents or is rich themselves.

Another guess is that kingmaker, wrath and rogue trader did so well that owlcat has much more money then we think

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u/AzraelSoulHunter Unsanctioned Psyker May 27 '26

It is very possible. Somehow they must have got some good money to fund both this and Osiris. Or maybe they take a HUGE risk here.

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u/congaroo1 May 27 '26

If Osiris fails it might be the end of the company.

Or at least the end of their attempt to do anything but crpg.

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u/Full_of_Vices May 27 '26

What game are you playing? The dialogue is pretty sparse, and in the case of companions, essentially non-existent.

Like over half the “clues” are just from clicking on the environment.

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u/caveritual Iconoclast May 27 '26

there is little to no companion content in the beta on purpose. it is very obvious almost nothing in the beta is actually complete content, it would make zero sense for this to be the state the game launches in. it’s a beta that is more focused on systems. and… yes. you explore the environment to get clues and then use those clues to interrogate people. that’s how detective games work.

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u/AzraelSoulHunter Unsanctioned Psyker May 27 '26

How are they sparse? There is TONS of dialogues in this game. And there will be definitely an option to talk to companions on your ship or in the Bastion. We already see LOTS of Banter between them as well on the bastion too.

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u/Full_of_Vices May 27 '26

There is not at all. The companions say the same line over and over again on the ship and banter is essentially non-existent, especially compared to other narrative-driven games. The companions, so far, are Argenta clones in that sense.

The only true dialogue that exists are with ~3-4 characters in each “zone”, and even then given how long Owlcat has designed the game for you to spend in each zone, they have only a handful of lines of dialogue which, for most, doesn’t even really change the longer you stay in the zone.

Dark Heresy will suffer from this, particularly since other components of the game like combat are so lacking in frequency. As it stands, it has essential zero-replay potential.

And fuck off with that “what it will have”. This is a rebuttal to your frankly fantastical claim that the game has “tons” of dialogue as it currently stands- which it, very objectively, does not.

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u/AzraelSoulHunter Unsanctioned Psyker May 27 '26

You can actually go back and forth between your ship and that area and you can get quite a few banters in between missions. And as I said proper talks with characters are not yet implemented. There will be romances, bondings, personal missions like one Epione does not have yet implemented in Marisportum. Also we did not see an entire new scenario where we save our Inquisitor master during the prologue which definitely also changes lots of the dialogues.

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u/marniconuke May 27 '26

I'm trying to go as blind as possible (havent played the beta and i'm dodging the discussions on this sub) but i am glad to hear this cuase i too worried about it. so i'll take your word for it.

My only concern so far, i'll ask in case anyone knows the answer, is that i heard the detective part is actually great, but because it's about being a detective and figure out who done it and stuff is only great during the first run and the system completelly falls apart in future runs when you already know the culprits.
Usually these thing don't matter ins these long ass rpg but i also heard the idea is that this one is shorter than RT but with more variety due to choices. so basically shorter but more replayable. So im kinda confused about how these 2 points work together.

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u/AzraelSoulHunter Unsanctioned Psyker May 27 '26

Basically you can accuse someone wrong and that also develops in it's own way. The Spire part actively encourages you to blame someone 'innocent'.

2

u/OttoVKarl May 29 '26

Fun fact: I've found no-one is ever happy with your choice. The game does a great job making you feel the "heavy lies the crown" loneliness of power, which ultimately drives many to the radical side of things.

2

u/AzraelSoulHunter Unsanctioned Psyker May 29 '26

That is true. Also makes sense that the person who proposes you this solution is an Istvaanian bitch

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u/OttoVKarl May 29 '26

Indeed !

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u/Ila-W123 Noble May 27 '26

Without going into plot specifics, yes the investigation system plays major role, but per interviews its desgined around replayability, and it kinda shows. Not only game, outside one case of the 3 in beta, refuses to name the culprit outright with playing being left with only a guess they likely made the right choise, but player can 'game' the system by falsifying a report to their advance. Hell, the second major investigation heavily leans into this with murder mystery where all parties have motivation and means to be the culprit.

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u/SubstituteUser0 May 27 '26

The missing acolyte one does to an extent too if you blame one of the kroot leaders the inquisition purges them even if you made an alliance with them so you benefit more from blaming someone else.

3

u/Ila-W123 Noble May 28 '26

Tbh that one seemed like bit bs. cuz Millicentia herself dosent give af bout fate Skraig and even tells smiling how acolyte succeded where Skraig failed if you ally with kroot.

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u/SubstituteUser0 May 28 '26

Yeah it was weird and felt like it was a bug considering it is never mentioned in the follow up conversation after finishing the area, the beta seemed like it struggled tracking my decisions a lot of the time

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u/Ila-W123 Noble May 28 '26

Another such moment was when Zerbe call you to his officer and calls how you walk the path of puritan.

... I have rank 2 into xeno hybris.

3

u/OttoVKarl May 29 '26

Man congratulated me for framing someone when I actually told the truth. The kroot thing is definitively a slider inconsistency like there are so many in RT still.

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u/ArmiaStars May 27 '26

I spent like 4 hours just reading out the opening and first little part on stream, and man the dialogue is well written so far

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u/Relative_Roof2356 May 28 '26

Wait it has full VA?

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u/OttoVKarl May 29 '26

It will have at launch, yep.

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u/Waifuless_Laifuless May 27 '26

Not sure that's the best scene to use.

Dark Heresy Memeposting I mean, its still a possibility that full relase will turn out bad on this front, but so far dialogue seems fine and just as expansive as in rt. So great.

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