This trailer for Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II Chaos Rising features Lead Designer Daniel Kading from Relic Entertainment showing off the new content featured in Chaos Rising.s single player campaign.

Set in the grim, war-ravaged world of the WH40k science fiction universe, Chaos Rising transports players into the midst of an intergalactic war between ancient enemies.

In Rage of the Gladiator, you are fighting for your life in an arena. Armed with your magical warhammer and a trusty shield, you must defeat fantastic bosses including a Chimera, Beholder, and a Dragon.

This new dev diary shows off The Last Stand, the recently released DLC pack for Dawn of War II, which contains two new multiplayer maps, balance updates and bug fixes.

If there are any doubters left, MechWarrior 5 has a gameplay trailer out. Almost 3 minutes of footage gives you a glimpse of planet Deshler, part of the Draconis Combine, and the terrific Tolek city layout. There’s definitely some House Kurita action in there as well as a glimpse of one of my personal favorite battle mechs, the Jenner-D, in action. The Warhammer and the awesome Atlus-C are also in the MechWarrior 5 Gameplay Trailer.

I’ve always liked the Battle Tech series whether it’s FASA’s original pen and paper game or the MechWarrior PC series. It looks like 10 years is going to be worth the wait.

There’s been a fair bit of speculation about MechWarrior the last couple of days, due to some short video clips that appeared on the net. The videos really didn’t show much, just a quick look at some unmarked mechs. Still, excited discussions ensued.

Fans debated the type of mechs, armament of mechs, and what the videos actually meant. Well, the speculation can all come to a screeching halt now.

According to IGN AU, Jordan Weisman is behind the revival of the franchise. If don’t remember Weisman, he was the co-founder of FASA, the company that created the BattleTech universe. He also founded Smith and Tinker, the company that acquired the rights to MechWarrior from Microsoft in 2007.

You’ll find more details on the next MechWarrior after the break.

Read the full article

Last week we saw the id/Bethesda merger under parent company ZeniMax Media and there was much rejoicing, but what if Electronic Arts merged its two online game developers into one giant super developer wouldn’t that raise some eyebrows and be general cause for mass excitement?

Well that actually happened as the publishing giant reorganized a bit putting RPG mavens Bioware and long time MMO developers Mythic in the same division. While the two studios will remain mostly autonomous for the time being, they now both have a single reporting line up the chain to the big bosses and money men. That single leader? Bioware’s Dr. Ray Muzyka.

Dr. Muzyka’s ascencion to the head of the organization basically also points to the exit of Mythic’s longtime leader Mark Jacobs. According to Jacob’s blog the MMO pioneer is taking a sabatical for awhile and he leaves with a classy ‘I’m not going to dish on anything, I’m just going to thank folks and peacefully step aside’ sort of announcement – a classy response that we don’t get to see so often these days.

Regarding the future path of the now combined studio’s efforts, Dr. Muzyka indicated in an official response over on IGN that:

Anything’s possible. We can’t say it wouldn’t happen. There’s no active plans, currently to do that, but the teams at Mythic and BioWare I know from talking to all of them, they’re really excited about working together, so I think that fuels a lot of cool things.

Warhammer: Age of Reckoning is still holding strong in the WoW dominated MMO market while Bioware’s first effort – the much anticipated Star Wars: The Old Republic is still a ways off. Mythic has a lot of experience that could help the minds at Bioware pull off their vision of Star Wars and maybe even put a dent in the Warcraft numbers but only time will tell if this pairing will be all it seems.

Football season is open for the denizens of the Warhammer Universe with the launch of Blood Bowl. Based on American football, this ultra violent sports strategy game has players head for the goal lines by trickery, magic or disembowelment. Unnecessary roughness is the name of the game as the blood and body parts fly. No this is not meant for the little ones.

Blood Bowl isn’t just another Madden clone. It’s a faithful reproduction of the original board game so it has a tactical turn based mode as well. Choose from Dwarfs, Lizardmen, Wood Elves, Orcs, Humans, Skraven, Goblins, and the Beastmen and Minotaurs of Chaos to build and manage your team and take it online to compete. Just keep in mind you need the ball to score a touchdown, not the cornerback’s head.

The players that survive the bonecrushing, backstabbing drive to the goal line are some really mean pieces of work. The official Blood Bowl site is taking pre-orders for digital copies for the June 26 launch. Take a look at the Blood Bowl Launch Trailer which makes the XFL look like flag football.

In the interest of keeping the main page SFW follow the link for the gory details…
Read the full article

If you’re a Warhammer Online player looking for some insight or official answers to the most commonly asked questions relating to the huge upcoming update for Mythic’s MMO then it’s probably a good day for you. Earlier today the developer published a FAQ about the changes and additions coming to the game with the update.

The FAQ covers the level requirements, how the new areas will be handled in Realm v. Realm control and discusses some details on the dungeons and lair instances in the expansion.

While I’ve not played Warhammer Online since shortly after launch (not because I dislike it, but because I only have time in my life for 1 MMO and Lord of the Rings Online already has a claim on my soul), EA Mythic seems to continue to deliver many of the features promised before launch and thanks to player feedback since.

Reading through the FAQ almost convinced me it was time to reload the client and rejoin my Dark Elf compatriots in preparation for the new content.

A mega update for Relic’s RTS Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War II has gone live. This brings the game version up to 1.3.1. The update will be applied automatically when you login to Steam.

Key changes include addition of a 2 vs. 2 mode, two new maps, new unit selection graphics, and a re-tooled skirmish AI.

An in-depth developers’ log (including screenshots) of the update can be found by following the links below:

The Road to Patch 1.3 (Part One)
The Road to Patch 1.3 (Part Two)
The Road to Patch 1.3 (Part Three)
The Road to Patch 1.3 (Part Four)
The Road to Patch 1.3 (Part Five)

If you are not interested in reading something that fancy, you can check out a brief listing after the break.

Read the full article