Even today, after however many cross-media adaptations and spin-offs, you can see that this setting began life as a gleefully ham-fisted joke about the draconian tendencies and colonial nostalgia of Thatcherite Britain. It’s about a bunch of big stupid space empires that exist on a permanent war footing, each shaped and structured by blunt hatred of the rest. But in practice, of course, it can be brutally simplistic. Its 'High Gothic' universe appears nightmarishly storied, bristling with spires and skulls and scrolls and seals, with ancient, cathedralic voidships and battle machines that have actual souls.

Warhammer 40K is arguably the ultimate work of sci-fantasy greebling. While it doesn’t have the cinematic swagger and raw anecdote-generating capacity of obvious rival Baldur's Gate 3, Rogue Trader has mystique and depth to spare, both in terms of its grotty narrative and its exceedingly busy combat and levelling systems.

But after 20 hours of the game, I can absolutely say that I’m looking forward to the next 80. There are still many more tabletop-style planetary maps to discover and plunder, many more character levels to scale, and many more cursed artefacts to tamper with before my protagonist, the closet Chaos worshipper Bruschetta de Plonque, can pronounce herself mistress of the Kronos Expanse - assuming the Inquisition doesn’t claim her first. It turns out that trying to complete an estimated 100-hour RPG during the run-up to The Game Awards is too much for this humble Scriptor. In the grim darkness of the far future… I will finish my review of Owlcat’s Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader.

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