Gamescom 2010 has games-come and games-gone, and much like the retreating flood-waters of the merciless ocean, left in its wake a variety of interesting tidbits. One of those was of course the announcement of the next Dawn of War II expansion, Retribution, and it promises to be a doozy.
The first, and definitely most important, part of Retribution is that there’s two new campaigns - and one of them is full of Orks. A single level of this campaign was shown at Gamescom this year, and it featured a band of four Orky brotherz stomping their way through a lava-wracked warzone, crushing copious amounts of puny Eldar skulls as they went. Your boyz, led by the peacefully-named Kaptin Bludflagg, consist of Mister Nailbrain (a Big Mek, with a big gun), Brikkfist (a Stormboy Nob with a jetpack and a massive hammer), and Spookums (a stealthy Kommando).
Much like the Blood Ravens in the first DoW II campaign, each of da boyz has a different set of skills and abilities they can use, with the most noteworthy being Spookum’s grappling hook ability. Using this the Kommando can climb up and around terrain, letting him work behind enemy lines or bypass fortified positions to strike from the vulnerable rear. But even with four terrific bad-asses you’re still going to be outnumbered and outgunned, so you’ll be pleased to know that that Retribution is cranking back the clock a little and mixing a bit of old-school RTS into this tasty green beefcake.
Capturing control points during the campaign’s scenarios allow the player to create units and amass an army, with different control points providing either population boosts or money (requisition) to your forces. In true Orky fashion your Orks get better the more of them there are around, with combat bonuses being stacked onto your heroes if they’re in the thick of a massive punch-up and surrounded by their mates. The units won’t just be limited to foot troops like the ubiquitous Slugga Boyz as well, with Relic assuring us that tanks and armour will also make an appearance. War banners can be captured during the scenarios as well, allowing you to upgrade your heroes with tasty new gear.
Speaking of upgrades, the upgrade system has been... well, upgraded; after each mission you are now offered a choice from three rewards, rather than the single reward given to you in the original Dawn of War II campaign. But Relic aren’t just satisfied with putting everybody’s favourite greenskins in, stating that there will be an entirely new race to get their own single-player campaign as well! The smart money is of course on the Imperial Guard, with the blue-skinned alien Tau a close second.
It definitely seems like Relic are aiming to shake up the formula a little with Retribution, which should hit a lot of the right notes for the Dawn of War fans out there. Although Chaos Rising was undoubtedly well-received, it seemed like the free Last Stand game-mode quickly became the star of the show, rather than all the new content that the expansion delivered. Retribution seems on-track to really crank things up a notch and bring fans stampeding back to the series, though with the game not due out until March 2011, we’ll just have to wait and see.
Reader's Digest Edition: 2 new campaigns, one Ork, one for the new race, probably Imperial Guard or Tau, but nothing has been revealed.
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Also, Relic have finally come to their senses, and are ditching GFWL:
Relic's Producer of all things Dawn of War II here at Relic has fielded some questions from PC Gamer on the announcement that DOW II: Retribution will be using Steamworks in place of GFWL:
"We asked Retribution’s producer Jeff Lydell for more detail on their decision.
PC Gamer: Why did you decide to switch to Steam?
Jeff Lydell: Mostly it was related to the end-user experience. Dawn of War II and Chaos Rising are hybrids of Steamworks and Games for Windows LIVE, and require the owners of those games to log in to both to play. We’ve always thought this was cumbersome, and only implemented it because back in Dawn of War II’s development, we needed digital distribution and matchmaking features from both platforms.
Since then both Microsoft and Valve have worked to catch up with each other, and on Dawn of War II – Retribution, we’ve decided to utilize the Steamworks SDK for networking and matchmaking."
On the down side:
To accomplish this transition, Dawn of War II - Retribution will be a completely stand alone title in the series and will provide multiple campaigns to play, as well as all six multiplayer races, with new units for each of the existing five races and one new unannounced one. In a change from our previous strategies with expansion packs, we will not be patching this content back into Dawn of War II and Chaos Rising.
Sounds like they're splitting the community
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