By Kieron Gillen on August 17th, 2010 at 5:01 pm.
This news breaks as sharply as the sound of a bolter-magazine being slammed into place by the palm of the righteous. Just announced is that there’s a second incoming expansion for Dawn of War II. Set a decade after Chaos Rising, rather than being stuck with the Blood Ravens, you get to choose your side. Which sides do you get to pick from? Well, as you may surmise from the enormous jaw bellowing at you above, one will be the Orks. Also promised are new multiplayer units and a whole new faction. Which sounds like a cue to link to our Dawn of War 2 sweepstakes article again. Go Jokero! Anyway – the expansion will be out in the first “bit” of 2011 and the first trailer follows…
Those certainly are some Orks. And here’s another one. Click for full size:
17/08/2010 at 17:07 Mr Chug says:
The Orks always got the short end of the stick in DOW2- the closest they get to a compliment is saying that ‘they might have been able to hold off the Tyranids’ after your low level squad has completely crippled them in about 5 missions.
17/08/2010 at 21:17 Zogtee says:
Orkz is the bezt. WAAAAAGGH!
17/08/2010 at 17:09 ChaK_ says:
good gods YES !
17/08/2010 at 17:10 TotalBiscuit says:
Fuck
and
Yes
17/08/2010 at 17:14 TCM says:
That is an Ork in a pirate hat.
I will never play another race ever again.
17/08/2010 at 19:37 Zombat says:
An Ork in a pirate hat with a IRISH accent!
17/08/2010 at 17:16 LMN8R says:
oh
yes
17/08/2010 at 17:17 Burny says:
You get to choose your side?
*Sigh*
Let’s hope the campaign of this addon is a bit more than a few dozen glorified skirmish matches held together by no story at all. I’m looking at you, Dark Crusade and Soulstorm!
17/08/2010 at 17:35 ChaK_ says:
DOW 2 was ok story-wise, and chaos rising was very solid. i’m extremely confident
17/08/2010 at 17:42 Gritz says:
Dark Crusade was excellent. Who plays games like this for the story?
17/08/2010 at 17:53 subedii says:
I actually felt that Chaos Rising had a decent story, it managed to keep me interested, which surprised me. Despite the lower budget, at the very least the dialogue was better than Starcraft 2.
17/08/2010 at 18:17 MWoody says:
NO. FUCK THAT.
The last DoW had a campaign that pretended to have strategic options, but in reality, the metagame was completely gone. Just not there; it had all the choices of the overworld in Mario 3. I would GLADLY sacrifice story – I mean, seriously, you’re a large angry man killing bugs/robots/green things, who cares? – if they’d go back to your choices about which mission to tackle and when would have some weight again.
17/08/2010 at 18:20 DJ Phantoon says:
Woody with the exception of one or two because I didn’t really care, I was able to do every side mission I wanted before it timed out.
17/08/2010 at 18:22 TCM says:
Dark Crusade’s only strategic option was “which of these overpowered bonuses will let me finish this torture fest faster”.
I refuse to speak about Soulstorm.
17/08/2010 at 18:59 Vinraith says:
I enjoyed DoW2′s campaign, to my surprise, but agree that I enjoyed Dark Crusade’s more. At the end of the day, in a strategy game, I’ll take strategic options and strategic context over story any day. Honestly, strategy games are NOT a good story telling medium, but they’re a great medium for letting you tell your OWN story.
17/08/2010 at 19:13 Archonsod says:
I though Dark Crusade handled it well. You had the strategy map to play with, and key scenarios gave you a bit of banter between the characters. Pretty much all I’d want from a 40K game.
17/08/2010 at 22:38 Burny says:
@Vinraith:
Why did I have the feeling, that the story I “told” by playing DC, was the one about a guy playing a dozen skirmish matches, then?
Also, I think the Blizzard RTS games since SC have shown impressively how such games can tell a story. Even if the story is pure cliché. Starcraft 2 even goes back to Wing Commander like sequences and that should be more than any writer needs to bring his story across.
That’s not my main issue however, because as a former (and hopefully future, if time permits) 40k tabletop (Tyranid) and DoW 1 (vanilla, wa, dc) player, I have completely given up the 40k universe as a source of compelling video game stories. The stories about terribly heroic oversized warrior monks waging epic wars across the galaxy for the emperor, some chaos god or just for survival, might have given me something at the age of 15 when I started. However, they don’t do this anymore.
For me, the complete lack of human emotion, I could identify with, is one part of the problem. After all, I am no monk, standing 2,4m tall, created to die in the name of some half dead emperor figure, whose personal interests are praying, killing the enemies of man and the then praying some more. The other part is the permanent dealing in absolutes (survival or extinction). There SHOULD be more than enough opportunities to tell more subtle stories in the 40k universe and still find an excuse for eternal war, but the DoW games have certainly not taken them. Story wise, I didn’t find DoW vanilla or WA any more interesting than DC, so that’s not my issue.
But all that doesn’t prevent me from enjoying a game. After all I love Nintendo games and their stories are usually no more than mere excuses for hopping across a level or to unriddle another temple.
My main issue with DC was the mission design. While DoW vanilla and WA did at least try to give every mission a theme (although I think only Blizzard’s SC1/2 + WCIII actually really succeed there), DC was mainly pure skirmish with some excuse of tactical options. Which, I think, can largely be blamed on the premise of being able to choose your race. Once you’ve got seven races and probably a bit of a tight budget compared to people like Blizzard, there is no way you’ll handcraft a campaign with a handful of compelling missions for each race.
I’ve got a lot of other issues with the DoW series and no hope, that Relic will ever address them in any addon or sequel. Some I mentioned above and the others go a lot deeper than the usual complaints about poor patch support or the “OMFG you haz ruined my DoWz”-attitude some people have towards DoW II.
So, more painting minis for me. ;-)
18/08/2010 at 06:25 Henrik J says:
What i liked about DC was that you got to play some of the newer races, the thought of being to play as the Orks isnt exactly appealing or anything we havent tried a million times, give Space Marines, Orks and Chaos a rest and do something cool with the more interesting armies.
17/08/2010 at 17:20 Coded One says:
WAAAGH!
17/08/2010 at 17:21 Eversor says:
How can you ever return to your commander Vanilla Ice, when you have the option to play a glorious ork pirate?
17/08/2010 at 17:22 Kronyx says:
Sweet mother of mercy.
AN ORK CAMPAIGN!?
On top of that a PIRATE Ork? This is the best thing ever.
17/08/2010 at 17:23 westyfield says:
Half of me is in shock at the terrible, terrible accent. The other half is overjoyed at the pirate ork.
Overjoyed half is winning.
17/08/2010 at 17:26 DarthNader says:
I just got a little bigga.
17/08/2010 at 17:31 SanguineAngel says:
HAHhahahHAhahahA YES
17/08/2010 at 17:27 Mungrul says:
Please let there be Weird Boys with their associated retinues of Mad Boyz.
Pleeeaaase.
17/08/2010 at 17:27 The Hammer says:
If Gorgutz returns, then I’m in.
17/08/2010 at 19:44 Patrick says:
That is Gorgutz. Wearing a pirate hat. Game will be boss.
18/08/2010 at 00:32 Psychopomp says:
I always do like people who say they want strategy in their RTS, so they play Dawn of Microwar 2
18/08/2010 at 03:35 Tetragrammaton says:
Freebooters ftw
17/08/2010 at 17:28 DarkFenix says:
I look forward to the campaign, those have always been good in DoW2 and Chaos Rising. A shame the multiplayer will remain the piece of dumbed down monodimensional crap it has been since they threw out all the good ideas they had in DoW1.
Also, this expansion reeks of not even adding another race.
17/08/2010 at 17:30 TCM says:
“Also promised are new multiplayer units and a whole new faction.”
…?
17/08/2010 at 17:55 subedii says:
Quiet, you might disrupt his raging.
17/08/2010 at 18:11 Dante says:
Also, what?
I’m struggling to think of what they’ve taken out of the multiplayer from DoW 1, and they’ve certainly added the whole cover/destructible battlefield thing.
17/08/2010 at 18:12 TCM says:
Base Building, I guess.
17/08/2010 at 18:15 subedii says:
Some people were upset that there wasn’t as much base building as in the original.
Personally I loved DoW2′s multiplayer, spent loads of time with it. When you’ve got good teams going, 3v3′s can become some really epic affairs.
That’s a point, now we’ll be able to play 3v3′s with every player a different race. Should look pretty awesome.
17/08/2010 at 19:01 DarkFenix says:
Ok total reading fail on the extra race thing, but why don’t you go troll somewhere else subedii.
Yeah it was basically the castrated unit rosters and complete lack of base building that pissed me off with DoW2. The game is just so shallow, consisting of a single tactic: rushing. You have to rush around and play a game of cat and mouse capping, losing, then recapping each point. The battles are tiny too, with the pop cap also reduced to almost nothing.
I like to play RTS games in a far more deliberate fashion, using slow burning strategies. DoW2 is an extremely shallow game tactically, limiting your options to a barebones few that Relic ‘let you’ use.
17/08/2010 at 19:37 subedii says:
I wasn’t trolling, I just said you were getting ragey, which you were.
Back to the topic at hand, I could just as easily say Starcraft is a game about “Rushing” too, but that’s only really an accurate descriptor in the vaguest terms. Likewise, DoW2 is a tactical level game, but there’s a tonne of depth. You might not like the style of gameplay espoused in DoW2, but that’s not the same as saying there isn’t any depth to it.
There’s a huge focus on constant motion and outmanoeuvring your opponent. Harassment is pretty key, there’s a large element of denying them resources where possible. Flank attacks are crucial against entrenched positions, especially when you consider not just cover, but suppression as well. Strategic decision making comes into play not just in what points to attack / defend / hold, but with constant scouting of your opponent and what equipment / units they’re using, and countermanding it. Number of units available per side is about the same, but wargear options (and crucially, combinations) are more meaningful now, especially with the choice between commander units in play and how they can completely change the capabilities of an army. The commander / faction specific Global abilities factor into that as well.
As for squad sizes being reduced, well yeah, they have been. That was a move they made to make it more in keeping with the TT game. I can understand if you don’t like that, but In terms of visuals, a 3v3 still looks ridiculously over-the-top with units pouring out everywhere. In gameplay terms it doesn’t really make much difference, except you get a better sense of scale with horde races like Orkz and Tyranids.
I mean in a game of DoW1 the gameplay was always heavily focussed on offence, and was very much a tactical level game, not really a strategic level one. You talk about how DoW2 dropped “strategy” compared to DoW1, but DoW2 largely just streamlined things by switching to 3 tech levels as opposed to multiple buildings. A decent multiplayer game in DoW2 can be fast paced (although interestingly, I find a good Starcraft match much faster paced), but then the same was true of a decent game of DoW1.
17/08/2010 at 19:47 Tim Ward says:
[quote]Yeah it was basically the castrated unit rosters and complete lack of base building that pissed me off with DoW2.[/quote]
Dawn of War 1 invented base building? Or is this not about the “removal of the good ideas they had in Dawn of War 1″, but the game moving away from the familiar RTS structure and therefore out of your Starcraft comfort zone?
There’s a lot wrong with Dawn of War 2 multiplayer – mostly that it’s just uninteresting and basically completely shit – but the lack of base building is among the faults.
17/08/2010 at 19:52 Tim Ward says:
(“is *not* among its faults”)
17/08/2010 at 20:34 Steven Hutton says:
You think the multi-player in DoW2 is shit? I mean, really? I am completely taken aback. Any chance you could tell me what’s wrong with it? I love DoW2.
17/08/2010 at 23:34 Tim Ward says:
Endless scrabbling for purposeless pieces of metal which claim to be “strategic” points but which are, in fact, nothing more than litter is not my idea of a compelling 40k experience.
I fucking hate the whole “competitive” RTS scene, with it’s “mirco” “build orders” and “metagame”. I just do not give a shit about that stuff. Dawn of War 2 multiplayer is designed, explicitly, to be that kind of game. Now, I recognize that while I hate the whole click-clickity RTS scene there are many people who love it and they deserve to have games made that cater for them too. However: why waste the 40k franchise making a game which is, fundamentally, not like 40k? Why not make a new franchise where the setting is built around the conventions of highly competitive, micro-oriented online RTS play (“starcraft wannabe” for short) and the all important game balance isn’t hamstrung by having to play lipservice to the 40k fluff. Then make a 40k game which is actually like 40k, not what is fundamentally a fairly abstract strategy game with a 40k paint of coat. Think something like World in Conflict.
18/08/2010 at 09:15 subedii says:
I don’t mean to be argumentative, but I do wish to disagree there.
Personally I would’ve actually said that WiC is less focussed on overall strategy than DoW2, at least when it comes to individual players. WiC actually depends a lot more on individual unit micro and is altogether more reflex based as well. Snap decisions make or destroy whole squads in literally seconds, and it’s still very much based around the whole “capture points” mechanic. You talk about scrabbling for capture points in DoW2, that is very much what you’re doing in WiC as well. The reason that some games go with a capture points mechanic is because it creates points of contention and make for a faster paced game (nobody can afford to sit back and wait). There’s the reinforcement mechanic (which doesn’t depend on a base, just drops), but in real terms it’s still a means of trickling your units to you over time once they’ve been destroyed. Instead of teching to give escalation to the gameplay, you’ve instead got the build up of and usage of tactical aids as more carnage ensues.
The meta-game in WiC is there, but because each player is fulfilling a very specific role, it depends a lot more on your team mates coordinating everything together, Not that it doesn’t work when it happens, but for the most part it plays out more like the RTS equivalent of CS (which was actually one of their stated design goals). Most of the time in WiC multiplayer though, it’s a pretty big mess since there’s lots of players and not much cooperation.
Also, with the comparisons to Starcraft, DoW2 doesn’t really have near the kind of micromanagement oriented gameplay of something like Starcraft 2. Just for comparison, high tier SC2 players regularly have an APM (Actions Per Minute, something they obsess about a fair amount in SC2) somewhere in the region of 150-200. They need that just to be able to manage the game at a high level. I remember a diamond league player talking about this, he mentioned a high level DoW2 clan mate of his, whose APM was measured more along the lines of 90. Which is what you’d need just to be average at Starcraft 2. In general, the way the gameplay is designed in DoW2 doesn’t really require hefty bouts of micromanagement, which is also why you don’t really hear about players obsessing over APM when it comes to DoW2. After all, we’re talking about a game that has pretty much foregone base building (and fine tuning of base building and unit production is still micromanagement, whatever SC2 players may say) and is instead focussed primarily on the squad level tactics.
If we were to draw a line, I’d definitely place DoW2 far closer in gameplay style to something like WiC than I would SC2.
However, if you’re arguing that the gameplay should actually be closer to the TT game, then I can sort of see where you’re coming from. However, I don’t really see how they could move to get any closer to the TT version than they currently are, apart from turning it into a TBS game. As it stands though, I felt that the DoW series to date has made really good use of the franchise as given. They’ve managed to do a good job of reflecting the universe and what makes it “cool”, in real time, while giving the gameplay its own unique spin on the RTS.
17/08/2010 at 17:31 Fumarole says:
More dakka is a good thing.
17/08/2010 at 17:32 wyrmsine says:
Not enuff dakka.
Okay, to be fair, it’s never enuff. Beats the hell out of the joyless Space Marines, though. Looking forward to this.
17/08/2010 at 17:33 Skusey says:
Ork pirates are better than Lady pirates.
17/08/2010 at 17:40 Shubb9 says:
At least we’ll have story campaign that’s not Blood Ravens again, wish they’d have done this with the last expansion. I was gagging to for a decent Chaos campaign after thoroughly enjoying the Dark Crusade choose your faction and RISK your way across the planet stuff.
Also given what Dark Fenix said about the lack of new races, could Retribution be redolent of any other races? Seems to me the ‘I’ in the Retribution logo looks to me like the type thats been used for the Inquisition (Dan Abnett etc.) in various GW stuff
17/08/2010 at 17:41 laikapants says:
I’m so many kinds of okay with this. That said, I really need to finish the base game and Chaos Rising.
17/08/2010 at 17:42 pkt-zer0 says:
Insane rip-off, 150$ (and possibly more!) for a single game, clearly this evil is Activision’s doing…
oh, wait.
17/08/2010 at 18:06 Meat Circus says:
Did you miss the THQ pack on Steam during the Summer Sale? Best gaming bargain I ever bought.
17/08/2010 at 17:43 ChampionHyena says:
‘ere we go, ‘ere we go, ‘ere we go.
17/08/2010 at 21:39 oatish says:
Hey some one knows what the Freebooterz are!
Finally the “clan-less” orks getting some love.
17/08/2010 at 17:44 modulus says:
Sooo…inquisition ‘I’ at the end of the trailer: Ordo Hereticus again?
17/08/2010 at 17:45 Dirk says:
That one letter in Retribution reminds me of Rosette of imperial inquisition. Coincidence or not?
17/08/2010 at 17:47 Kirian says:
Not enuff Red Wunz fer moy likin’. Wot is doze Meks finkin’, da dozy buggerz?
Honestly. Freebooterz iz’ cool an’ all, but Speed Freakz would make my day.
17/08/2010 at 17:48 Spoon says:
I’m going to guess that the inquisition’s I in the logo is there for a reason. New side = one of the ____hunters armies?
17/08/2010 at 17:49 ScubaMonster says:
Too bad hardly anybody will be playing online. A few weeks back I hopped online. Not many custom matches and I didn’t even bother using matchmaking as I have better things to do than stare at my screen for an hour waiting for it to find a game.
17/08/2010 at 19:14 Primar says:
I/we’ve never waited more than a minute or so to find a normal MP game. Perhaps you live in a timezone/location where there aren’t many players?
17/08/2010 at 17:51 Shubb9 says:
RPS hivemind has four Inquisition mentions in the space of 8 mins. Its a shoe in, heard it here first
17/08/2010 at 17:59 subedii says:
Considering how Chaos Rising played out, the Inquisition wouldn’t be a surprising addition.
17/08/2010 at 18:03 Meat Circus says:
FOR THE EMPEROR.
I love you, Relic. No, really.
17/08/2010 at 18:03 Out Reach says:
Seeing it’s an Ork Campaign I’d probably put my money on the Imperial Legion being the new race, just because they are the guys the Orks spend most of the time killing (other than each other of course).
17/08/2010 at 18:04 Shubb9 says:
“Taking place years after the events in Dawn of War II: Chaos Rising, this title allows players to choose their perspective with the first multiple-race single player campaign in the Dawn of War II series. The first race to be revealed is the savage Orks, but no matter which race is chosen players will be taken on an epic journey through each story arc, revealing the answers to many questions left open in previous Dawn of War titles.”
The way I read the piece by Kieron at the top was that it was only the Orkz getting a single player campaign. Reading the official press release pleases me greatly
17/08/2010 at 18:10 Shubb9 says:
sauce:
http://forums.relicnews.com/showpost.php?s=0a686091814d69c222d02d3e6920fd29&p=3906929&postcount=116
17/08/2010 at 18:58 Fox says:
Nice, though that’s a big “expansion pack” if they do end up having campaigns for several (more than 2) races. Still hoping for Eldar myself.
17/08/2010 at 19:00 Kieron Gillen says:
The phrase “Expandalone” does leap to mind.
KG
18/08/2010 at 13:08 Sir Derpicus says:
please let there be guardsman I want guardsmen this is a tactical DOW game why do we have no guardsmen did I mention I want guardsmen it would be really nice if we get guardsmen guardsmen are awesome they use artillery and tanks I like guardsmen come on please let there be guardsmen you already have the goddamn models why not just do it it’s not like anybody likes the taus anyways space communists are lame just add the guardsmen already
17/08/2010 at 18:06 bleeters says:
Pirate hat? So it’s a WAAAA-AARRR, then.
…don’t hit me, I bruise easily :(
17/08/2010 at 18:18 stojg says:
Finally
17/08/2010 at 18:18 subedii says:
This proves it, the only ones dominating PC gaming now are the pirates. Jim Raynor’s space pirates, Orky WAAAGH pirates, the odd Patrician…
17/08/2010 at 18:18 danarchist says:
I love playing Orcs, back in my old table top dayz I ran what my friends called the “Random Army”. Bunch of weirdboyz, pretty much any unit that had a hilarious random effect in combat. It wasn’t so much winning to me as laughing my butt off as my squiggoth turned and rampaged through my own ranks. I liked to think of it as my own personal handicap to even it out for my more stoned friends ;)
17/08/2010 at 18:19 coldwave says:
Yes.
YES.
ORKS – ORKS – ORKS
17/08/2010 at 18:26 subedii says:
Shacknews has screenshots of what looks like the Ork campaign equipment screen, showing four of the squad leaders. Inluding “Kaptin BluddFlagg”, the pirate of the piece.
http://www.shacknews.com/onearticle.x/65169
Look, ‘e even ‘as on da proppa pie-rate trousa’s!
17/08/2010 at 18:27 Navagon says:
So there are still people alive in the Blood Ravens’ system? But anyway, this is good news. Even if I have yet to grab Chaos Rising I’ll still be getting both eventually.
17/08/2010 at 18:28 coldwave says:
Next Addon – Ork Ninjas.
17/08/2010 at 18:32 subedii says:
Dey’s called Kommando Nobs, and dey’s right sneeky.
17/08/2010 at 18:49 michaelar says:
Obligatory awesome Ork quote:
“A WAAAGH! is a cross between a holy crusade and a pub crawl, with a bit of genocide thrown in for good measure.”
17/08/2010 at 18:50 ira says:
My body is ready.
17/08/2010 at 18:56 measurements says:
I played DOW 2 sp campaign twice (and all of the dow 1 titles but winter assault lots too). But I haven’t purchased chaos rising… yet. The reason being that I am clearly missing something with that game. Because I would rage quit the single player. Only on bosses, though. But when you’re really trying for five stars on the single player levels and a boss can simply one shot pretty much any of your units from a massive range, without warning, seemingly with no cooldown, it pissed me off. I would wonder what I had failed to avoid or not thought about doing. I also wondered what the point of melee was, seeing as any melee encounter with a boss meant watching my force commander and or assault squad get skewered like cheap kebab meat and flung into a corner to decompose.
I’d simply love for someone to point out exactly why I’m a whining noob and how I could avoid such epic failings. Perhaps then I could muster some excitement for the game and actually get stuck into it and it’s expansions, instead of playing skirmishes on soulstorm (which I didn’t have any problem with, unlike some here). Because I really do love the warhammer 40k universe. I want to want to play. Help me.
17/08/2010 at 19:06 subedii says:
Well not trying for a 5 star rating would be a start. Just play the game.
More importantly, play it co-op if you possibly can, the game really does shine in co-op when you’ve each got control of two squads, you start using them to the most of their abilities. And you also move them about more freely and precisely during boss fights, instead of tending to group select and move.
The boss fights vary, some are stupid cheesy (like the Avatar), some aren’t. Chaos Rising largely has much fewer boss fights, and instead has a greater focus on a more structured campaign. I still found the end boss fight in CR a bit too cheesy.
Other than that, nobody can make you like DoW2, you either do or you don’t. Personally I found the campaign average in DoW2 (but a LOT more fun when you co-op it and set the difficulty a notch higher), but I enjoyed the SP campaign in Chaos Rising much more. Although realistically, I spent the vast majority of my playtime in DoW2 in the multiplayer, so YMMV.
17/08/2010 at 20:19 Csauli says:
So he asks “What can I do to try and get 5 stars without the game slapping me in the face?”, and your reply is “Stop trying.”?
Wow. That is awesome, Subedii. Really helpful, and I’m sure he’s very grateful to you. You really are a good person!
17/08/2010 at 20:59 subedii says:
So what exactly am I supposed to say? Some of the boss fights were poorly designed, and he’s right, they are frustrating. Trying to 5-star them for no reason is pointless, and just adds to frustration. The only thing 5 starring it on everything gives you is more points on your end screen, and possibly an extra deployment. But those aren’t really necessary either and they’re easily enough earned simply by defeating all the enemies in the level or something.
I’m sorry I can’t give you some magical solution to make the boss fights more fun and easy to beat, short of dumping it down to easy mode. The other solution is just cheesing everything (like say, abusing Thaddeus jump-in invulnerability by spamming it constantly), but that’s not fun either.
17/08/2010 at 22:49 sebmojo says:
Jeez subedii that’s two completely unwarranted NERDRAGESTRIKES against you. That will certainly teach you for being helpful and providing useful information in a calm and non-frothing manner, eh? In the grim darkness of the RPS forums there is only GRARRRRR.
Personally I love DoW 2, though as noted above notching the difficulty up a bit makes a big difference. Chaos Rising is getting snappity snapped up at the next Steam sale, that’s fer dam sure.
18/08/2010 at 02:48 FRIENDLYUNIT says:
Heh. Commenter bitchiness funny.
In all seriousness in the boss fights try hovering your finger over x (the run away squealing key) and dont be afraid to do it early. Also, have two melee units active and just keep them running away, healing up then running back in a cycle. You’ll eventually wear them down.
Also, yes. Five stars in all categories? Well that’s just a little bit precious (no offence, just a ‘reality check’). Clearly if the game is set at an appropriate challenge level it should be very hard to do.
17/08/2010 at 19:00 Sarlix says:
So do Ork pirates not Adorne parrots like regular pirates? Or do they have some sort of Orkish alternative?
I’m a bit disappointed. They don’t even have peg legs. I suppose the shoulder pads make up for it to some degree, but I really think that pirate classification has become too lax in recent years. I remember at one time becoming a pirate involved such rigors as being shot in the knee caps with flint-locks. etc
Arrr, the good old days.
17/08/2010 at 19:08 TheFlyingWooly says:
Could have a squig I suppose.
18/08/2010 at 02:44 FRIENDLYUNIT says:
Indeed. I was most shocked to see both legs intact when they showed the full picture. Bah! A fancy hat on an ork a pirate does not make.
17/08/2010 at 19:02 TheFlyingWooly says:
Defiantly an Inquisition symbol replacing the I on retribution.
Wonder what branch will be in game.
Malleus – Grey Knights?
Hereticus – Sisters of Battle?
Xenos – Deathwatch?
17/08/2010 at 19:05 TheFlyingWooly says:
Defiantly = Definitely.
Silly sod.
17/08/2010 at 21:36 Davie says:
The biggest thing I missed from DoW 1 were the Grey Knights. I do hope they make a return.
17/08/2010 at 19:04 LRVG says:
Check out the I in “Retribution” at the end of the trailer.
Inquisition as the new faction?
17/08/2010 at 19:17 Jon says:
“I” specualtion – Grey Knights would fit into the DOW2 campaign style rather well.
17/08/2010 at 19:18 Orange Required says:
I’m hoping the new faction will be Inquisitor-recruited Imperial Guard with unique and crazy Inquisition elites as leaders.
pleasepleaseplease
17/08/2010 at 19:18 Archonsod says:
Inquisition would make sense in terms of title and imagery.
I was hoping for the Guard myself though.
17/08/2010 at 19:20 BigMeh says:
Imperial Guard with Inquisition attachments is my guess.
17/08/2010 at 19:55 PaulOHara says:
Looks like my 2011 game purchases just went up by one. Really like the Dawn of War series.
17/08/2010 at 20:03 Davie says:
YES! YESSSS!
Pirate orks are a mighty incentive for me to revive my graphics card so I can play the damn game again. EXCITING STUFF.
I better see some Imperial Guard or Tau though. I want my railguns and Baneblades again.
17/08/2010 at 20:17 unitled says:
I hated Dark Crusade’s campaign. The stronghold battles were fine, because there was some narrative to them, but endlessly playing the same boring skirmish maps over and over does NOT a fun campaign make. There’s a dedicated Skirmish mode to let you do things like that, leave the campaign mode as a proper story.
17/08/2010 at 20:37 danarchist says:
One thing that has always bothered me was when playing single player RTS campaigns there always seems to be what I like to call “The chain of gimmicks”. Star Craft 2 being a good example. For what seemed like the first 80% of the game every mission had some sort of timer I had to beat. Either I needed to gather x amount of something before someone else did, Save the lemming NPC’s, or destroy something that was slowly massacring the map. Although I imagine this is fun for some people, and in small doses I think its great, but when the majority of the campaign is same/same it gets old.
Soulstorm I still play because I enjoy being able to build up my base and have my way with the maps for as long as I feel like before I trounce the enemy. With the Tau homeworld map being the only exception (and only one I dont like). Ticking timers are fine for guys that enjoy the stress of em, but I prefer my stress in the form of little guys attacking me while I burn there homes down.
17/08/2010 at 20:38 Vinraith says:
One off skirmish and skirmish with large scale strategic context are two very, very different things. There’s a world of linear, lead-you-by-the-nose, story-driven RTS campaigns out there, go play one of them and leave the rare RTS games with some strategy in their campaigns alone.
18/08/2010 at 00:37 malkav11 says:
Dark Crusade had almost no large scale strategic context, though. You get a handful of persistent uber units and that’s about it. The gameplay at that level was arguably more bare bones than Shogun Total War’s strategic layer, and -that- was dull as dishwater.
18/08/2010 at 00:45 Vinraith says:
You entire base was persistent in DC, actually, which was great. However, what I mean by “context” is choosing where and when I attack, moving forward, falling back when I lose (rather than restarting the mission), that sort of thing. Think Close Combat, basically, that’s pretty much what I want out of an RTS campaign.
18/08/2010 at 00:53 malkav11 says:
But Dark Crusade gave very little reason for any of that to matter. It’s effectively a choice between which skirmish map to load. I’m not against Dark Crusade’s model of gameplay, per se. Like I say, I enjoyed it to some extent. But I don’t think a strategic layer that threadbare is much recompense for the heavy lack of variety inherent in the skirmish system thus presented. Give me something more akin to 40K: Total War, and I’m right there with you.
18/08/2010 at 01:07 Vinraith says:
I enjoyed the skirmish gameplay so much in DoW that I didn’t mind how limited the strategic level was, but I completely agree that something more substantial would be better. A Total-War-like game with 40K would be absolutely brilliant.
17/08/2010 at 21:35 Fullbleed says:
AHHHHHHHHHH It’s the fucking Inquisition! Special ‘I’ in Retribution says so! Just please let it be Grey Knights this time and not Sisters of Battle.
17/08/2010 at 21:50 Anthony Damiani says:
Right.
So:
When.
Do I get.
My Tau?
18/08/2010 at 03:31 Tetragrammaton says:
Everyone knows Tau aren’t real warhammer *ducks*
18/08/2010 at 00:07 Hensler says:
I loved the first Dawn of War and liked Dawn of War II, but I really hoping Relic announces a new game soon. It just seems like every DoW 2 multiplayer match plays out exactly the same for me and I haven’t really logged that many hours into it or Chaos Rising beyond the campaigns. I’ll still end up buying this, though – RTS games are my drug of choice.
As for the next new Relic strategy game: I dream of it being a new Company of Heroes game, set in modern times. If moving from WW2 to today worked for Call of Duty and Medal of Honor, I’d love to see what Relic could do with today’s military hardware. World in Conflict was fun, but was set in the Cold War and Endwar was a pretty big disappointment (and I belive I read Endwar 2 was cancelled), so I’d kill to see Company of Heroes: Modern Combat Fare of Wars.
Or, you know, Homeworld 3…
18/08/2010 at 00:12 pignoli says:
+1 Yay-ness. I think I’m going to explode with 40k goodness soon: With this, Space Marine, the Ultramarines movie, the copious fiction I’ve just started exploring and the PnP RPGs I need never actually give in to the temptation of actually buying an army and playing the original game!
18/08/2010 at 00:16 Jorum says:
Deathwatch are Grey Knights are in essence just uber Space Marines.
I’d prefer Witchhunters – much more interesting unit – sisters of mercy, penitance engines etc..
18/08/2010 at 00:36 malkav11 says:
I liked Dark Crusade, as far as it went, but if you’re going to tie a string of skirmishes together and call it a campaign mode, you really ought to have more meat to the “strategic layer” than either it or Soulstorm had. And really, it’s not that I care overmuch about the story of most RTS campaigns (although occasionally Blizzard or somebody makes me care), but that I much prefer the heavily scripted, more elaborate scenarios of campaign play to the barebones “multiplayer but with a ravening multiclick monster for an opponent” that is skirmish mode. Dawn of War II’s gone one better by entirely divorcing the campaign mode from multiplayer’s gameplay, and, at least in Chaos Rising, is entirely the better for it. If this expansion has that or better, with races besides Space Marines? gimme now.
18/08/2010 at 01:50 DemonClaw says:
YES! finally some green love :P WAAAAGH! dem freebotaz are ‘ere to kick some teef in (since humie teef are to weak to buy anything with anyway) can’t wait to see more from this
18/08/2010 at 03:30 Tetragrammaton says:
Man, this might make me buy another DOW2 expandalone even though the gameplay dosent do a thing for me. Gamesworkshop really has me by the wallet. Bastards.
18/08/2010 at 04:37 pipman300 says:
GW will be using this as an opportunity to bring back the squats
18/08/2010 at 10:58 Ovno says:
I loved DoW 2 the lack of base building made it so much more interesting and less of the same slog over and over again as you didn’t have to build the same base at the start of every mission.
Plot was good enough too, certainly for a stragegy game.
Playing through chaos rising atm, as when I went to buy Starcraft 2 off steam it wasn’t available and theres no way I’m paying an extra £15 compared the shop for the priviledge of downloading it straight from blizzard.
Loving it so far and well chuffed theres another expansion in the works :)
Just for the love of god don’t bring base building and resource gathering back to single player, its got nothing to do with strategy its just grind….
18/08/2010 at 12:17 Mpc says:
Pretty lame, we already have orcs give us tau or imperials….
18/08/2010 at 14:41 DemonClaw says:
‘Pretty lame, we already have orcs give us tau or imperials….
they are still bringing a new playable faction
18/08/2010 at 19:30 Tariqone says:
I want to play as Eldar. I want to play as Eldar, and prior to 40K Online. That is to say, PUT PLAYABLE ELDAR IN DOW2 NOW OK.
Thank you.
19/08/2010 at 16:57 luphisto says:
Gah! another excuse to play dawn of way for a billion more hours..
03/11/2010 at 17:46 Max says:
That is one awesome Ork. Is he like, a pirate or something? Damn.