The Grim Darkness comes to the Koronus Expanse

…In the darkness between the stars
The weak and the faithless find no deliverance…

Lord Captains!

With the Void Shadows expansion just around the corner, we are proud to announce a major new feature that is coming to Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader for all owners of the base game alongside the expansion:

The Grim Darkness mode.

What is the Grim Darkness Mode?

Often referred to as “Ironman” in other titles, the Grim Darkness mode is the ultimate trial for the boldest of Lord Captains - a challenge for the most experienced, most prepared (or perhaps, most reckless!) players, who wish to truly immerse themselves in the dark and dangerous universe of Warhammer 40,000.

In this mode, you only have a single save, which is updated automatically every time you exit the game. No second chances - you will have to live with the consequences of all your actions and decisions. If your party or voidship are defeated, your Grim Darkness journey will end.

But if you manage to successfully overcome all the obstacles and make it all the way to the end, your feat of strength will be rewarded with the brand new “There Is Only War…” achievement, which will also unlock a special item for all your future playthroughs:

Amulet of the Indomitable Spirit

Such a trophy can only be worn by one who has fully comprehended an ancient truth — that in the universe there exists only war.

Once per battle, whenever the wearer's wounds drop to 0, they regain 20% of their maximum wounds.

How to Activate the Grim Darkness Mode

When you start a new game, you’ll find a new “Grim Darkness” option under the difficulty settings marked by a distinctive skull icon. When turned on, it will prompt you with a warning about its dangers and if accepted, will enable Grim Darkness rules for the new game. All Grim Darkness mode saves will be marked in the Load Game menu with the same skull icon. 

Such a trophy can only be worn by one who has fully comprehended an ancient truth — that in the universe there exists only war.

At launch, the Grim Darkness mode is only available for PC and only for single player, but we plan to expand it to the other platforms and co-op mode later. 

Designing the Grim Darkness Mode

In both our previous games, Pathfinder: Kingmaker and Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous, there was a similar mode called The Last Azlanti. The mode earned a lot of acclaim in our community, providing a trial of gaming skill and wits, while also adding a whole new level of emotional investment due to the high risk and reward. We’ve seen many players discussing builds for this mode, competing between each other in beating the games in exotic ways, and sharing their stories of glorious victory (or no less glorious demise!). 

We even went as far as hosting a large challenge event for streamers, known as the Last Azlanti Challenge.

Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader originally shipped without an “Ironman” mode. But players kept asking us about it, and we also felt it was missing compared to our previous titles, so we wanted to revisit it.

It took us some time, but we’re finally there! And this time we’ve brought some innovations to the familiar approach. Among them:

- Unlike in the previous games, the Grim Darkness mode is not affected by difficulty - you may now freely switch it or customize it at any time during your playthrough, the same as in the normal game mode. Some would say that this allows the player to abuse the system - but we believe that the players playing this mode are, first and foremost, looking for an honourable challenge. We felt that we rather let you, the players, decide for yourself how you want it played, and adjust your settings to your preferences;

- The conditions of defeat are no longer attached to the main character falling in battle - you only lose when the whole party or the voidship is defeated;

- You can now convert the Grim Darkness save into a normal save at any time if you no longer wish to continue playing that mode. Note however, that the opposite is not true and, once made, the conversion cannot be reversed. Converting your game into normal mode will make you ineligible for the “There Is Only War…” achievement or its reward;

- The moment you meet your demise, you no longer instantly lose the save as it happened in the previous games - instead, you will be offered a choice to either accept your fate and delete the save, or to continue your playthrough, converting your save into a normal, non-Grim Darkness game as described above. This will allow you to finish the story if the death caught you close to the end of the game, but you will no longer qualify for the achievement or reward.

What’s on the horizon?

We are preparing a large exciting event related to this feature. Stay tuned for the announcement!

On a more general note, this feature is a good example of how we intend to approach the game in future updates. Besides the DLCs, we plan to gradually improve and expand the base game, not only with bug fixes, but also with alterations based on your feedback (which we are really grateful for, by the way!) and by adding brand new content in major updates.

The Emperor protects!