Playing the Warhammer 40k Dark Heresy alpha convinced me that Owlcat really has built this game fully around its clue gathering, hypothesis forming Investigation system. But we still didn't really know what your Inquisitorial verdicts actually mean - how they affect the story, and what happens if you accuse the 'wrong' person. Well, in an interview with Wargamer this week, Dark Heresy's executive producer Anatoly Shestov gave me some answers. And boy, are they very 40k.
Asking what happens when the player gets it wrong is simply "framing it in the wrong way", he tells me firmly and a little disapprovingly (very much in the manner of an Inquisitor himself, now I come to think of it).
"It's not like there is a right answer and bunch of wrong ones. We design any investigation another way," he explains. "It's the 'true' thing that happened, and then the different things you can take from it - which things would you like to take from it?"
"It's not about finding truth. The Inquisition isn't about truth."
If you've read my Dark Heresy Alpha preview, that might sound like a strange thing to say about a CRPG that consciously wraps your whole experience around detective work - gathering and assessing information, forming and testing hypotheses to work out what happened here and why. But, as Shestov explains, this is because 40k Inquisitors and real world detectives (even fictional ones) have vastly different aims, even if much of their work is the same.
Columbo or Hercule Poirot want to find the perpetrator of a crime and prove them guilty, so they can be tried in court and sent to jail. Inquisitors (and their chosen acolytes, like our player character) may have similar skills and use similar tactics - but their motivations, end goals, and ideas of 'justice' tend to be much murkier.
Dark Heresy's decisions, Shestov says, will let you chart your own course between those opposing poles: serving the objective truth, or serving the Emperor of Mankind in the way you think best - generally by turning what you find out to the advantage of one Inquisition faction or another.
"If you personally, as a player, are role playing that Sherlock Holmes style, with personal dedication to uncover what was hidden, feel free to do so - you can! But if you are role playing other ways, you can."
"It's not like reactivity to things you did 'wrong'," he says. "No, there are choices that you're making, and each of them - true or false - will have its consequences."
Owlcat's playable alpha build, released to press and pre-order customers in December 2025, showcases several of these interlocking investigations, taking place in a specific, early chapter of the game. We experience the mechanics in detail, but don't get to see how our eventual verdicts impact the world and story in following chapters.
With a grin, however, Shestov assures me they will. "Without spoilers, I can tell you just this much: you will be going with the consequences of lots of your choices through the very end of the game," he says.
"There will be layers of consequences - Not just one episode that pops up because of choice A and other because of choice B, but sets of episodes intertwined with each other, changing the overall outcomes."
A vague promise, to be sure. But, judging by the long and lavish storyline in Owlcat's breakthrough CRPG Warhammer 40k Rogue Trader - and the almost unnerving sense of absolute determination I got from Shestov in our chat this week - I wouldn't bet against Owlcat on this.
It's got me even more excited to learn more about how our inquisitorial decisions, even as a lowly acolyte, will shape the game's narrative. In all the best Warhammer 40k books about such things, Inquisitors hold extraordinary, extra-legal powers to bypass the Imperium's normally ironclad, totalitarian hierarchy and enact massive changes based purely on what they think best.
If there's one thing I can tell for sure about Anatoly Shestov, it's that he's deeply enamored with that aspect of the Inquisitor's role, and all the surrounding 40k lore and politics. It's pretty clear how much that plays into every part of this game's development, too - but if you want to find out about that, you'll have to read the next part of my interview with Owlcat Games, coming very soon on Wargamer!
In the meantime, come join the free Wargamer Discord community to chat with us about your hopes for Dark Heresy, who's the coolest out of Eisenhorn, Ravenor, and Bequin, what Malcador the Sigillite would think of the 41st millennium Inquisition, or really any other pocket of nerdy Warhammer trivia you like. Like the Inquisition, we make our own rules.