14 DAY TRIAL // I loved the original Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War. The guys from Relic managed to deliver a real time strategy that changed the way both developers and players looked at the medium. The game, which also benefited from a very good backdrop in the Warhammer universe as created by Games Workshop, managed to streamline the resource acquisition, create a fast and furious battle system, and deliver great graphics for its day. The three expansions (testament to the strength of the idea and of the engine), called Winter Assault, Dark Crusade and Soulstorm, managed to add an extra layer of choices by introducing a strategic map and resources for all territories, while bringing more factions (Necrons, Sisters of Battle) to play around with.
The fact that the first game in the series has been so solid, the ideas announced for Dawn of War II, the videos showing off the Tyranids (long time favorites in the lore, new to the videogames) and my recent experience with the Dawn of War II beta have convinced me that Dawn of War II would be one of the biggest strategy releases of the year (dare I say even bigger than StarCraft II?) on the PC and not only. The multiplayer beta has drawn me even closer to the game. It feels like a step forward for real time strategy. There's no base building, but there are more than enough things you can do with your squads and with upgrades to keep a player busy. The sides are still undergoing some balancing but a good player can pretty much win by using whatever commander he wants, even though I still can't win a game with the Eldar.
The one unknown at the moment, after the beta for the multiplayer stage showed a few of the tricks, is how the single player campaign will unfold. We know that, pretty much like in the original release of the first Dawn of War, we will only be playing as a detachment of the Space Marines as they face the enemies of the Empire of Man, the Eldar, the Tyranids and the Orks, all of which can be played as in multiplayer. We also know that the progression will be non linear, meaning that there are battles that can be skipped but at a cost to harder future engagements. Relic has also said that more role playing elements, like finding weapons from defeated enemies and more frequent and point based level ups, would be featured in the campaign. There's also co operative play for the first player campaign and previews show that coordination and tactics are crucial.
The game launches on February 19 and Steam has it available for pre-loading, meaning that you can download it now and begin to play as soon as the game is released at retail. The developers at Relic have already announced that they plan a Day 0 patch that would fix some of the balancing issues which made it out of the beta stage.