14 DAY TRIAL // In the field of PC exclusive RTS (Real Time Strategy) games, there are not a lot of prominent titles, basically because most of them try to recreate elements of mechanics found in the previous ones and market them as innovative. But a few franchises, such as Starcraft, Command & Conquer and Age of Empires or Warhammer 40,000, did manage to stand out from a crowd.
Although most of them already have new iterations in development, the biggest progress has been seen with Dawn of War 2, the new game in the Warhammer 40k series. This new title, set to be released in the second quarter of 2009, promises to bring quite a lot of innovations to the popular Dawn of War universe, but it will only feature one playable race, the Space Marines.
Such a decision, like the one Blizzard made with Starcraft II, which is to split the single player campaigns into three different games, has sparked quite a lot of turmoil in the community of Warhammer fans. But now, Jeff Lydell, the associate producer, is telling Videogamer that such a decision has been made to represent the Space Marine race with a higher degree of fidelity, further stating that, in the future, we might see new races added by expansion packs, if the fans demand such a thing.
“Really it comes down to how much focus you want to give to each campaign. If you're only doing one, you can give it more attention. We've seen a real trend where the games that focus on fewer hours are doing quite well. We have a fairly long campaign, as it turns out. We didn't expect it, but we ended up with more than 20 hours, as far as we can tell. But by focusing on one story with one race, you're going to be able to deliver it to a higher degree of fidelity – and that's what the audience ultimately wants. Good entertainment.”
Although such news might bring a frown on the faces of Warhammer fans, the decision, as is Blizzard's, is for their sake, in order to deliver a quality game in a short time. Let's just hope that it will all be worth it, and that gamers will have a great experience with this future RTS title.