Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader: Ash Parrish on a Commissar run after a Secret Level short
Ash Parrish wrote a first-person piece about Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader and how an Amazon Secret Level short rekindled her interest.
- In the piece, Parrish says an animated Warhammer 40,000 short from Amazon’s Secret Level rekindled her interest in Warhammer.
- Parrish says she played the game as a Commissar and references the perk “One for the enemies, two for the traitors.”
What happened
Ash Parrish published a personal piece at Kotaku about Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader, the top-down CRPG from Owlcat Games. In it, she describes how an animated Warhammer 40,000 short from Amazon’s Secret Level pulled her back into Warhammer lore. The article is written as a first-person story rather than a technical review with a score or final rating.
Parrish writes that she then dug further into the universe through the first three Horus Heresy novels and a few collected short-story anthologies. She also says she adjusted her YouTube and Instagram preferences to surface more Warhammer content. That paints a personal path back into the Warhammer 40,000 universe, with the Secret Level short as the starting point and the books as the next step.
According to the piece, Parrish then bought Rogue Trader because she wanted to play a game where she could take on “traitors and heretics” in the Warhammer universe. She mentions the Commissar class and cites a perk she describes as “One for the enemies, two for the traitors.” In the same description, Parrish compares the game to Baldur’s Gate III, though that is her own comparison rather than an objective measurement of the game.
The provided source does not name which specific Secret Level short it was. It also does not confirm whether the perk name appears exactly that way in the game or whether it is Parrish’s own wording from her article. What is clear is that Parrish explicitly writes about her renewed interest, her reading list, and her choice to play Rogue Trader as a Commissar.
Timeline
Unknown date: Ash Parrish watches an animated Warhammer 40,000 short in Amazon’s Secret Level and says it rekindles her interest in Warhammer.
Unknown date: Parrish reads the first three Horus Heresy novels and two collected short-story anthologies.
Unknown date: Parrish adjusts her YouTube and Instagram preferences to see more Warhammer content.
Unknown date: Parrish buys Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader from Owlcat Games.
Unknown date: Parrish says she plays the game as a Commissar.
Unknown date: Parrish references the perk “One for the enemies, two for the traitors.”
Background
Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader is a top-down CRPG from Owlcat Games set in the Warhammer 40,000 universe. The game is part of a broader wave of Warhammer media, including the animated shorts in Amazon’s Secret Level and the Horus Heresy book series Parrish mentions. In the source provided, Rogue Trader is not being covered as a new update or expansion, but as the subject of a personal essay.
The comparison to Baldur’s Gate III comes from Parrish’s own description of the game and should be read as a personal comparison. The source also notes that Parrish used her online recommendations to surface more Warhammer content, showing that her renewed interest came not only from reading and gaming, but also from changing what she saw on YouTube and Instagram.
The source does not give a publication date for the Kotaku piece and does not say which Secret Level episode or short animation was the original trigger. That leaves the exact context of the first spark unspecified, while the rest of Parrish’s path is described clearly: first the animation, then the books, then the social feeds, and finally Rogue Trader. The piece also centers on a specific role choice, Commissar, and a quoted perk name.
Sources
- Kotaku: “Im Enjoying My Villain Era In Warhammer 40K: Rogue Trader”