Owlcat Games announced its own optional PC launcher for Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader and other titles on June 22, promising a hub for news, patches, and add-ons without mandatory registration or data collection. The Steam announcement post quickly racked up nearly 2,000 comments and zero likes as players slammed the extra layer on top of Steam, citing background processes that wouldn't fully disable, increased resource use, and launch failures where the game refused to start through the new interface. Reddit threads in r/RogueTraderCRPG filled with complaints about hidden executables and Steam tribalism, with some users threatening to remove the game from wishlists or outright boycott.

Less than 24 hours later, Owlcat caved hard. The studio posted a terse rollback notice on Steam: "Lord Captains, we hear you and we are rolling back the launcher. The game will now revert to the previous patch, completely removing any Launcher-related changes. Thank you for your feedback, and genuinely sorry for the frustration caused." The move reverted Rogue Trader to its prior build and wiped the launcher changes entirely, drawing some begrudging thanks from players while others still demanded heads roll and blacklisted the studio.

This wasn't some surprise pivot—Owlcat had floated launcher testing for its upcoming Dark Heresy alpha months earlier, framing it as unobtrusive marketing. The instant backlash proves how allergic PC gamers remain to anything resembling another storefront or persistent background app, especially from a studio with a reputation for technical jank. Swift reversal shows the company still listens, but the 2,000-comment pile-on exposed exactly how little goodwill these experiments buy in 2026.