Warhammer 40k:Dawn of War 2 Details Revealed
By Stephany on Friday, March 28th, 2008 at 10:18 AM PST In Computer, Game Companies, Game Platforms, Gamer Life, Games, Warhammer
The Belgian magazine “PC Gameplay” has a preview of Warhammer 40K:Dawn of War 2 in its next issue and for those who cannot read a foreign language, here is what to expect from Relic’s newest addition to the their popular RTS series.
- Uses the Essence 2.0 engine with Havok physics, all optimized for DX10 and multicore support.
- Units also use CoH-like unit AI for awareness and pathfinding to find cover and such.
- While DoW 2 shares the same (upgraded probably) engine as CoH it won’t be “CoH in space”, while soldiers in CoH will ask themselves if flanking the enemy is the right option, in DoW2 it will be more like Space Marines asking themselves if they should use their jetpacks to jump over an Ork squad to attack them in the back. Different settings, different kinds of warfare.
- Preview only showed a destroyed city landscape, akin to DoW (but more detailed), other tilesets will offer deserts, jungles, mountains and other cities.
- Only the Orkz and Space Marines were revealed, more races on the way obviously and to be to revealed later this year (though how many isn’t known).
- Co-op campaign for both the Orkz and Space Marines, apparently not for the other to-be-revealed races.
- More focus on making units and squads unique; every unit has got a name (at least in the campaign it seems), more details and more animations.
- Relic wants to give players rewards at the end of a mission like wargear (armor, weapons, rare objects); “Let’s pimp out squads with cool stuff!”, you will see these items in-game as well of course.
- You’ll fight your way through the campaign with the same squads.
- You can’t control more than six squads! I am not sure if this is campaign-only but the preview made it sound like it wasn’t.
- The squads are going to be a lot more interesting than before though.
- A squad leader (one or several?) will need to survive if you want to complete a mission; you really have to look out for your squads and don’t treat them like cannon fodder.
- There is a lot more interesting commentary from the units as well; if your SM commander is holding a Thunder Hammer f.e. then the opponent will specifically comment on that, Ork Warchief saying something like “Ooh, nice hammer, but mine is bigger!”. The warchief will say something else if the commander doesn’t have the hammer.
- The campaign lets Space Marines operate from a spaceship, you’ll get a view of an underlying planet and you’ll be able to choose from different missions (which are tagged with difficulty colours, green, blue and red).
- Certain reward items won’t be useable at once in the campaign, so they’ll be taken back to the SM spaceship for research.
- Dreadnought can now also trample Orkz.
- No sea or air units (though jetpacks are still in of course).
- Development team of 55 people has been working on it since September 2006.
- Release in early 2009 or later.
The stats posted above came courtesy of NeoGaf who had the magazine’s information translated. A gaming site for the Netherlands also has the same information posted, but in a nice readable paragraph and you can view as well, but you will need to use Babel Fish to translate it unless you are the worldly sort.
I am sure Relic will release some information regarding WH40k: DoW2 sometime in the near future, especially since the internet is all abuzz with it this morning; therefore, be sure and check back with us often. In the meantime, click the links posted below for more info.
You know…that doesn’t sound very interesting. I’ll be willing to bet the fabled Tyranids will be in it, as is the hint at the end of Dark Crusade. It sounds exactly like CoH in space from the info released above, plus a few gratuitous 40K material.
6 Squads?
Well I’m not sure how you do the Tyranids and not get accused by most idiots of ripping off the Zerg.. but I’m actually really looking forward to DOW2. If they did make CoH in space it’d still be an amazing game with a great setting.
I’d love to see some Gothic level combat, fleet combat like with SW:Empire at War only set in the 40K universe would be great.
I just picked up Soulstorm and I’m anxious to get into the Dark Eldar campaign.
“Waaaaaaaaagh!”
Sounds like they are going back to basics. This certainly isn’t the first WH40k universe game with focus on squad based tactics (Space Hulk, anyone?). Whether it’s another “CoH in space” remains to be seen.
It certainly seems like Relic are stepping things up a notch. They’ve been famous in the past for being detail freaks, but this amount of precision sounds crazy. Instead of each battle being click>>shoot>>death_animation kind of deal, it really sounds like they are making each battle more intimate. Whether this implies crazy micromanagement, I don’t know. This could be a breathe of fresh air for a change.
All in all, I find this news exciting. This is not what I expected. If any of this info is true, DoW2 certainly won’t just be DoW (or CoH) with more units and an upgraded engine. And that’s fine with me. Nothing worse than stale-bread gaming syndrome.
For those of you dying for mass ‘nids, why not ask Games Workshop to license out the IP to the Total War creators. I’m sure they’d churn out yet another “Check us out, we got a bazillion units on the screen!” pseudo-RTS for you.
i hope it is still bace building as finite armys can get stale real quick
No more green skins
( ?
No more Greenskins? what are you talking about it says right there that you play Orks or Space Marines…
I realy wonder if they will include differences between the SM chapters. I mean things not only like logos or rewards or emblems? but things like different armour or details like Dark Angels hoods on their helments…or Black Templars loose overalls with black crosse on them…And if they do/ than it would be the greatest detailed war game ever!
there better be guard in it or it just got alot worse
Warhammer 40K is the best hopefully there is a tyanid campaign cause i want to see how good they are an if they are i will buy the army at games workshop
ive got the ork army and space marine army just another army to my colection
LOL!!!
Warhammer 40K is the best hopefully there is a tyanid campaign cause i want to see how good they are an if they are i will buy the army at games workshop
ive got the ork army and space marine army just another army to my colection
LOL!!!
This game sounds AWESOME. It’s gonna be cool fighting around preaditor carcasses while your marines pulverize on-coming green skins. Only if they included a space mode, like in Empire At War.
