MeinMMO editor and Warhammer expert Benedict Grothaus had the opportunity to talk with the head of the new role-playing game at gamescom 2025. Dark Heresy follows the already successful Rogue Trader and addresses many issues that were criticized – Benedict learned this during the conversation, as he already knew more in advance than others.
At gamescom 2025, Dark Heresy was one of my highlights, of which I already knew it would be good. And it wasn’t just a feeling, as we received advance information about the new Warhammer role-playing game.
The developers gave us at MeinMMO and our sister sites internationally at Webedia an exclusive look at the new game. New gameplay even premiered with us in the FYNG show – shortly after Hand Of Blood crashed it.
During the press presentation with Executive Producer Anatoly Shestov, I had a rare opportunity to gather more information: Firstly, the other journalist who was with me in the appointment had to leave after 10 minutes. So we could dive deeper into the Warhammer material.
On the other hand, I already knew most of the gameplay that Anatoly wanted to show me – much to his confusion. After he looked skeptically at me for a few minutes, wondering where I had this actually secret information from, we did go into detail. And it was worth it.
Dark Heresy improves exactly what annoyed many about Rogue Trader
To summarize briefly what we already knew: Dark Heresy aims to revise the combat and especially the class system of Rogue Trader. These were the biggest points of criticism in the first role-playing game.
Leveling was cumbersome due to too many options available, some of which didn’t even fit the chosen class. Combat became trivial at the latest by Act 2, as many mechanics were no longer really relevant. While this didn’t completely disrupt the flow of the game, it did cause a few complaints here and there.
In Dark Heresy, combat is significantly changed, for example, through:
- the ability to target specific body parts to hinder opponents
- Morale instead of Momentum, which influences the combat effectiveness of individual fighters
- or cover, which plays a bigger role and can prevent injuries.
In terms of the class system, Dark Heresy remains true to the known schema by continuing to provide archetypes, careers, and backgrounds. However, you no longer have dozens of options available, but instead, specializations are available.
Have changed what a career actually is
Anatoly explains to me in the conversation that the old system was designed to give people the opportunity to create builds as freely as possible. However, only about 10% of the skills were actually relevant, the majority were unimportant:
Therefore, we have changed our approach to what a career actually is. The soldier as a career, for example, is a person who can shoot in various ways. That’s all.
For example, you have Epione here. She is a soldier, and these are your options from the career: Run and Gun and Shockwave. Run and Gun says: You perform an attack that fires twice. Each shot does less damage. Shockwave says: Your area attack covers double the area and everyone in the area must make a saving throw or become staggered. That’s all the soldier career gives you, but it unlocks specializations.
Each specialization is a subset [of abilities] that were previously simply in your career, such as: single-target specialist or anti-armor specialist or AoE specialist or movement specialist. A small set of active abilities, some passive skills, boosts for skills, boosts for characteristics […]
If you simply want to oneshot opponents, there is a specialization for that. Every decision therein is interesting for you. So if you want to be a oneshot specialist, but don’t want anything to do with crowd control, you won’t see anything from that. […]
Anatoly Shestov, Executive Producer of Warhammer 40.000: Dark Heresy
Building builds will be easier and a bit “like Diablo 3”
The second part of the improvements, which Anatoly “didn’t plan to explain as part of the presentation” (heh), are modifications. He compares this to the gems and runes from Diablo 3:
Whenever a specialization is chosen, you basically get a “gem” that can be inserted into any ability to change it. For example: Every ally hit receives +2 Morale – just as an example. This effect can then be applied to a buff that already increases the morale of all companions.
Additionally, the team aims to reduce the degree of unnecessary details within the skills. Instead of a wall of text per ability, everything is now divided into dedicated, separate areas like specializations and modifications. The whole thing is meant to be understandable and as simple as possible.
By the way, if you want to become a psyker, every direction, like pyromancy, is its own specialization. How many specializations you can choose has yet to be decided – the team is still playing with different numbers. It will probably end up roughly around 5.
Dark Heresy already sounds like an excellent successor to Rogue Trader
In the conversation, Anatoly explained a few other things to me, such as the concentration system. Some abilities now last or need to be prepared – and can accordingly be interrupted. You should keep this in mind when attacking as well as when defending.
As for the content, we talked a bit about the hints system, and I saw in the gameplay how the inquisitor tries to solve a detective puzzle. Various approaches and solutions are possible, depending on how you want to behave.
A “secret ending” will also be present again, possibly a bit more hidden than in Rogue Trader. Back then, they wanted to appeal to “the normal player” as well, not just the absolute Warhammer nerds. With Dark Heresy, they are now daring to do a bit more.
As a fan of the franchise, all of this sounds excellent to me, and I was really lucky to be able to dive so deep into the whole thing. And although Dark Heresy was definitely one of my highlights, it came as little surprise – unlike Fata Deum: My biggest surprise at gamescom was a game I have been waiting for 24 years – and I didn’t even know it beforehand
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