How many game developers want Owlcat to rely on its own launcher. This went live on June 22, 2026, and was taken down less than 24 hours later. Why? The players of Rogue Trader hate it.
Why did the launcher have to go? On June 22, 2026, Owlcat released its own launcher for, among others, Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader (via Steam). This was meant to be optional for all players, and they looked forward to feedback.
This feedback resulted in exactly zero likes on the announcement and at the time of this news, 1,930 comments. Many complained that Rogue Trader, for example, would not start at all via the launcher. Additionally, it was said that it would use more memory. Some even claimed that the launcher would run even when they had turned it off.
Less than 24 hours later came via Steam post the withdrawal: Lord Captains, we hear you and we are retracting the launcher. The game will be rolled back to the previous patch, which will remove the launcher and all related changes. Thank you for your feedback, and we genuinely want to apologize for the frustration the launcher generated.
Half a year in the making, offline in less than 24 hours
What did Owlcat intend with the launcher? In fact, the now-canceled launcher was announced as early as late 2025. Back then, the developers stated that many players of Pathfinder 2 wanted to play similar titles but rarely came across Rogue Trader. The two player groups should be able to discover new games more easily.
In the announcement from Monday, the developers once again emphasized the reasons mentioned last year. They had found that many players struggled to stay up-to-date with news and game updates. The in-house launcher was supposed to solve these problems.
Did you test the launcher, or did the update pass you by unnoticed? Feel free to leave your experiences from the last two days in the comments.
By the way, we recently spoke with the developers of Owlcat. Not about the launcher but about the romances in their games – from Pathfinder to Rogue Trader. How romances come about, whether they want to orient themselves towards Baldur’s Gate 3 in the future, and more is what you’ll read in the interview: In Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader you can have an alien waifu – We spoke with the responsible parties
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