Owlcat Games, the developer behind Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader, announced on Monday, June 22, that it would be releasing its own PC launcher for all its games that would include news, patches, and content add-ons readily accessible in one place. The company told fans that it would be optional, requiring no mandatory registration, but it was still open to any feedback they might have on the experience. Well, less than 24 hours later, the company has followed up its lengthy breakdown with a three-sentence post telling fans it’s made the decision to roll back the launcher.
Lord Captains, we hear you and we are rolling back the launcher.
The game will now revert to the previous patch, completely removing any Launcher-related changes. Thank you for your feedback, and genuinely sorry for the frustration caused.
So what’s the issue? Why does the original announcement have zero likes and nearly 2000 comments? In general, new launchers are often a hard sell when most fans prefer the ubiquity of Steam, with many claiming they won’t buy games that are exclusive to a launcher or storefront they don’t typically use, but based on what folks said about Owlcat’s launcher, it sounds like the thing introduced more problems than it solved. Some players claimed that Rogue Trader wouldn’t even launch through it, the launcher itself takes up more processing power from your PC, and even if you chose to disable the launcher, fans claimed that it would still run in the background unless you messed around with the executable commands under the hood.
The quick turnaround has at least put Owlcat back in some fans’ good graces, with several comments on the rollback announcement thanking the company for its swift decision. There’s also a weird amount of Steam tribalism, though, and one guy is even telling Owlcat that it should fire the people responsible for the launcher and delay any game it was planning to put out in the next year as this move has gotten the studio “blacklisted” by people who feel burned by this move. All right, Sephiroth.
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