To celebrate the launch of the Void Shadows DLC and the introduction of Grim Darkness (“Ironman”) Mode for Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader, Owlcat Games is happy to announce a large competitive event: The Grim Darkness Challenge!
What is The Grim Darkness Challenge?
It is an intense competitive event for streamers, where, over the course of two weeks, participants will compete live in beating (or making it as far as they can in!) Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader on Daring difficulty in Grim Darkness mode - a newly introduced brutal gameplay mode where only a single save is allowed and is rewritten every time a player exits the game. All decisions and consequences in this mode are final, reloading is impossible, and if the party is defeated—the game is over!
Registration
In order to participate, you need to either be a streamer that is already a part of our partnership program Owlmates, or have a channel on Youtube or Twitch with at least 5000 subscribers and a reasonable number of views on recent videos. We’re ready to discuss corner cases (for example, some leeway may be given to non-English-speaking streamers with national audiences), but also reserve the right to deny registration without explanation if we consider it necessary.
For registration and all questions, contact Owlcat CM Starrok (Starrok on Discord or u/OwlcatStarrok on Reddit), or Owlcat CM Nathillien (Nathillien on Discord or u/OwlcatNathillien on Reddit).
Registration will remain open until October 14.
Victory conditions
- Winner is determined by beating the game or reaching the furthest Act without the player’s party ever being defeated.
- If multiple players have reached the same act or have beaten the game, tiebreakers are resolved by the number of quests completed (you can check completed quests in the journal).
- If still tied, the victory is determined in favor of the player who spent the least in-game time on their playthrough.
The challenge will begin on 00:00 GMT October 22, and last for 2 weeks until 23:59 GMT November 4, or until all players have successfully completed their playthroughs or were eliminated.
And remember: in the Grim Darkness of the far future, there is only one winner, and their feat will be rewarded with a unique prize!
In-game Rules
- Grim Darkness mode must be enabled;
- Daring Difficulty must be enabled;
- Void Shadows DLC must be installed and enabled;
- All free and cosmetic DLCs can be enabled;
- Any background or character-selection choices are allowed;
- Any ship type is allowed;
- Only single player is allowed;
- No mercenaries are allowed (only story companions);
- No mods can be used;
- It is prohibited to shutdown or alter the game in any way in order to prevent a death, make a different choice, or redo a skillcheck. Live with the consequences of your choices!
Technical Requirements
- After each game session, the participant must upload the following stats to the provided Discord channel:- Time played this session; - Total time played in campaign; - Current Act # reached - Number of completed quests (visible in the quest log) - Party setup that was used most of the time for this session (companions and archetypes). Builds don't need to be uploaded, but must be available on request.
- Playthroughs must happen strictly LIVE, with the streams and their records saved in case a need arises to check them. If you have connection issues, please save the game and continue when your connection is restored.
- All participants must manually make a backup of their save after every session (by default it is located in C:\Users\
\AppData\LocalLow\Owlcat Games\Warhammer 40000 Rogue Trader) to prevent unexpected progress loss due to power outages, Steam Cloud issues, bugs, and other force majeure factors. - If continuing or finishing the playthrough is impossible due to a non-gameplay related reason (a bug, power failure, hardware or software issues, etc.), contact the organizers. We may be able to let you continue from a previous backed-up save or restart the game, depending on the circumstances.
- We strongly urge all participants to use the #GrimDarknessChallenge hashtag in their media.
Cheating and Exploits
- It is forbidden to exploit bugs and a clearly unintended use of game mechanics to gain a gameplay advantage. If you are in doubt as to whether the situation can be classified as such, contact the organizers.
- No mods or external software may be used to modify the game or save or to alter them in any way.
Participants who break any of the rules above may be disqualified at the organizers' discretion.
Good luck!
