BREAKING NEWS: DAWN OF WAR 2 DETAILS

[Llyranor]

Copy-paste.

 

(PCGameplay, a Belgian mag, has a preview and interview with producer Mark Noseworthy in their latest issue, and Togra and Sturmer at Relicnews DoW forums were kind enough to translate and give us a summary of the preview.)

 

The intel (gathered from the preview and an interview with Producer Mark Noseworthy in the same Belgian magazine, PC Gameplay):

 

- Uses the Essence 2.0 engine with Havok physics, all optimised for DX10 and multicore support.

- It looks great, think of the DoW intro but with a bit less polygons here and there (in terms of lighting and all that it looks almost exactly the same).

- 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",/B] 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.

hehe I couldn't resist and bought the dutch gamemagazine.

 

Haven't read the article, but judging from the, thank god, many screenshots, it looks awesome.

 

Some quick info:

 

-Buildings can be occupied (like in coh)

-Environment completely destructable ^^

-Vehicles are bigger (there were only a couple of dreadnought shots)

-LOTS of blood (i saw the screens and thought LOL)

-Over the top finishing animations

-when units are in melee, pieces of battle armor can be chopped off in the action

SCREENSHOTS DESCRIPTIONS

* There's a screen of an Ork Warboss taking on three space marines. The warboss looks really brutal. With his right hand he picks up a space marine and crushes him in the air, with his left arm he's holding a chainsaw i think, and sawing the space marines in two?(pic is rather small so not to clear), a third marine attacks the ork from behind.

 

* There's a screen from a Commander with a warhammer, charging an Ork Warboss.

 

* The most brutal pic is that one of a dreadnought that slams his left arm into an ork, and the blood splashes in the air ^^

 

* After looking real good, i can see the tongue of an orc coming out of its mouth with mucus.

 

* Another pic is that of a battle between two dreadnoughts and some thirty orks i think (plus behind some cover, a few space marines supporting the dreadnoughts with heavy bolters).

 

* A space marine with a flamer roasting some orks.

 

* Image of Hades being eviscerated by 10,000 Space Marines.

 

* A rather large battle, involving three predators i guess (wasnt too clear, looked like two of 'em were already destroyed) many orks and some orks were obliterated by an orbital bombardement (that's right ^^).

 

* A close combat marine (forgot the name, with the jetpacks, yes that one), bursting his jetpacks and flying into the air.

 

* Two brutal finishing animations pics, but they werent too clear.

 

* And a pic orks occupying a LARGE building(looked like a cathedral), some marines assaulting it.

[Starwars]

I wish my name was Noseworthy.

[Zoma]

Need SCANS! SCANS!

 

OR IT NEVER HAPPEND!!!

[Tale]

We're in 2009 now, right?

[Krookie]

ROFLAHAHAHHAHAHA GOOD ONE TALE

[Moatilliatta]

Blessed is the mind too small for doubt.

Innocence proves nothing.

Serve the emperor, for tomorrow you may die.

 

They SO need to hurry up.

 

 

Edit: So are the zerg ripoffs in yet?

Edited March 28, 2008 by Moatilliatta

[Calax]

Blessed is the mind too small for doubt.

Innocence proves nothing.

Serve the emperor, for tomorrow you may die.

 

They SO need to hurry up.

 

 

Edit: So are the zerg ripoffs in yet?

tyranids came before zerg I believe.

 

edit:yes tale early 09.

Edited March 28, 2008 by Calax

[Zoma]

2009, the days when Alpha Protocl and 2 Aliens games are embracing us.

 

Now this

 

*Sniffles*

[Zoma]

Scans!

 

http://forums.gametrailers.com/showthread.php?t=351589

 

Yummmmmmm

[Gorth]

Blessed is the mind too small for doubt.

Innocence proves nothing.

Serve the emperor, for tomorrow you may die.

 

They SO need to hurry up.

 

 

Edit: So are the zerg ripoffs in yet?

tyranids came before zerg I believe.

 

edit:yes tale early 09.

Tyranids were featured as the opponents (of the marines) in the Space Hulk game from 1989. Not sure what a "Zerg" is nor when it is from

[Zoma]

Zerg is apparently, if I am not mistaken, Protoss's biological genewarfare product that went wrong.

 

And yup, Genestealers were there since the Rogue Traders edition I think, which is way back before SpaceHulk.

Edited March 28, 2008 by Zoma

[Calax]

Zerg is apparently, if I am not mistaken, Protoss's biological genewarfare product that went wrong.

 

And yup, Genestealers were there since the Rogue Traders edition I think, which is way back before SpaceHulk.

zerg were created and then promptly killed the Xel' Naga who also had a hand in guiding the protoss.

[Nick_i_am]

STOP TALKING ABOUT STARCRAP.

 

haha, see what I did there? I substituted 'craft' for 'crap' lolololol.

 

Anyway, this is awsome, espesally the stuff about limited squads, DoW got unweildy and unfun when you had to deal with more than about 8 squads.

[Shryke]

i'll be curious to see how the tyranids will work...

[Jinx]

It sounds like dow2 is going for a more authentic table-top feeling. I love that we'll be able to equip commanders and squads with wargear now :D

[Shryke]

"fighting with the same squads"

 

interesting, but i hope they don't go for a warcraft 3 heroes type approach

[Calax]

"fighting with the same squads"

 

interesting, but i hope they don't go for a warcraft 3 heroes type approach

probably more like the Myth approach where the same squads get MUCH better over time.

[Nick_i_am]

I'd imagine that to be the case, yeah, as happened in CoH (though units in that weren't fully persistant).

[Musopticon?]

*speechless*

 

*slowly starts droolin*

 

Emperor...I really can't help but to love Relic. Even though they went to the exact opposite direction I wanted them to, that is; not towards a larger scale Ground Control 2-like warfare, they seem to be doing it with style unprecedented. I've wanted unit experience to DoW forever! And they plan on retaining most of the features(able to choose missions, wargear, strategic map, etc), only limiting the number of races. That is fine with me, absolutely damn fine!

Edited March 28, 2008 by Musopticon?

[Musopticon?]

Also;

 

An open mind is like a fortress, with its gates unlocked and unbarred.

 

My race guesses. besides Blood Ravens and Gorgutz:

-Eldar definitely, they are a core race and have a monstrous popularity, also Taldeer is still alive.

-Tyranids, Relic has just about promised them

-Possibly either Chaos, though Tyranids might be a replacement for them and certainly a bigger threat; or most likely the Imperial Guard, due to both popularity and relevance to the Space Marine campaign(I mean, they are the planetary defence force afterall), hopefully un-Cadian this time.

 

The problem with both is that the forces are anything but uniform like they were featured in DoW1(I love how good it feels to finally use that designation), featuring various factions and varieties. I don't know how to solve this, especially since they won't necessarily have campaigns for themselves. I'd like to have a Chaos template for instance, which I could mold into Black Legion or Iron Warriors, or make a mix of Noise and Plague Marines with a smathering of corrupted Imperial equipment and Thousand Sons sorcerers, but it's only a wet dream.

Edited March 28, 2008 by Musopticon?

[Musopticon?]

Somebody please extend the edit function. I mean, I understand the adverse effects of having unlimited edit time, but I really hate to triple post.

 

 

Well, anyway, here's a

, fresh one.

[Moatilliatta]

tyranids came before zerg I believe.

Dude. Joke.

 

My race guesses. besides Blood Ravens and Gorgutz:

-Eldar definitely, they are a core race and have a monstrous popularity, also Taldeer is still alive.

-Tyranids, Relic has just about promised them

-Possibly either Chaos, though Tyranids might be a replacement for them and certainly a bigger threat; or most likely the Imperial Guard, due to both popularity and relevance to the Space Marine campaign(I mean, they are the planetary defence force afterall), hopefully un-Cadian this time.

 

The problem with both is that the forces are anything but uniform like they were featured in DoW1(I love how good it feels to finally use that designation), featuring various factions and varieties. I don't know how to solve this, especially since they won't necessarily have campaigns for themselves. I'd like to have a Chaos template for instance, which I could mold into Black Legion or Iron Warriors, or make a mix of Noise and Plague Marines with a smathering of corrupted Imperial equipment and Thousand Sons sorcerers, but it's only a wet dream.

Relic should go the awesome route and dedicate an entire expansion pack to chaos, that might actually make them interesting.

 

Well, anyway, here's a teaser, fresh one.

I wouldn't call one year ago for fresh.

Doesn't really show anything either. :'(

[Musopticon?]

Hahhah! I admit, I didn't actually do any checking before posting the video. Beaten by myself, damn. Well, at least it's topical.

 

 

And I agree, and maybe have the campaign about Chaos fighting Imperial Guard, who'd recieve a similar thorough revisioning. A whole separate campaign for them.

 

Well, a fan can dream, right?

[Moatilliatta]

Hahhah! I admit, I didn't actually do any checking before posting the video. Beaten by myself, damn. Well, at least it's topical.

I too were nearly fooled when somone linked to a teaser for a psp or ds game.

[Nick_i_am]

I have a friend who would give his left nut for Chaos in the game. Here's hoping.