Owlcat drops new launcher for Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader after backlash
Owlcat pulled the Rogue Trader launcher in under 24 hours after players blasted it as bloatware and piled up negative Steam reviews.
Owlcat Games ripped the new launcher out of Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader less than 24 hours after it went live, after players treated the update as one more obstacle between the desktop and the game itself. The launcher arrived in a June 22 Steam post as an optional hub for news. Saves, mods, and the game would stay unchanged, and players could still bypass it by launching the executable directly.
The launcher was meant to keep players up to date and to surface the rest of its RPG catalog, including Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous, Warhammer 40,000: Dark Heresy, and The Expanse: Osiris Reborn. Many players who try one Owlcat game never discover the others, and a central hub would make cross-promotion and news distribution easier in a crowded information feed.
Rogue Trader’s Steam community pushed back. Posts on June 22 and June 23 called the launcher unnecessary, bloatware, and “tonedeaf,” and some players said they switched their reviews from positive to negative over the change. Steam activity on June 22 and June 23 showed more than 160 negative reviews in roughly a day, many focused squarely on the launcher itself.
Owlcat reversed course fast. The studio restored Rogue Trader to its previous update and removed the launcher completely, then apologized for the frustration it caused. Rogue Trader’s update 1.6 and The Infinite Museion DLC both arrived on June 11, 2026.
Owlcat says it has more than 450 employees and is headquartered in Cyprus. Its catalog includes Pathfinder: Kingmaker, Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous, and Rogue Trader.
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