Warhammer 40:000: Dawn of War II Preview

As regular readers will know we loved the original Dawn of War. Its fast-paced, gory RTS action provided, and indeed still provides, some of the best RTS gameplay that can be found on the home of the genre - the PC. While there have been plenty of games in the last four years that have trumped it in the graphics stakes, few have surpassed it in the bloody brilliant stakes. Having caught up with developer Relic Entertainment at Leipzig Games Convention to check in on the progress of the game, we're delighted to report that the sequel is shaping up to be even better, and a serious challenger to Blizzard's Starcraft 2 in the upcoming battle of the RTS big-boys.

First, the headline new features. The Tyranids have been added to the race roster that already includes the Space Marines (in the form of the Blood Ravens), the Eldar and the Orkz. For those of you who don't peruse your local Games Workshop on a weekend (you know, that shop with all those little painted models rotating in the window and nervous-looking lads chucking dice across a green table), the Tyranids are a relentless race of aliens hell-bent on the destruction of pretty much anything they can see moving. Picture the aliens from Aliens on steroids.

The addition of the Tyranids is a move that fans have been calling for ever since the first game was released in 2004. Speculation that they would be added via one of the many released expansions had been rife. Now the waiting is over, and we're delighted.

You'll meet up with the Tyranids about two-thirds of the way through the main campaign, the approach to which has been heavily rethought by Relic. In the original, no matter what race you picked the campaign amounted to little more than a series of increasingly difficult skirmishes divided up by short cut scenes that combined to provide a story. It was fun, for sure, but once completed there was little reason to replay. This time around it's different.

Now, you'll have a non-linear campaign to contend with. While there's still much we don't know about the specifics of the campaign, we do know that you'll constantly have to make decisions about what objectives to tackle on the battlefield. This might be a choice between answering a distress call, perhaps from some civilians, or heading for some War Gear. The thing is, you won't have long to ponder your dilemma. The objectives will only be available for a predetermined length of time.

A question remains over just how much influence you'll be able to have on the non-linear story. Yes, you'll be able to choose your objectives, the completion of which has a knock on effect on how your characters are equipped since certain missions will offer specific rewards. What's not clear is if the story will adapt realistically to your choices on the battlefield, rather than simply shifting when we get to experience certain parts of the plot along the storyline time line? Time will tell.

To take it to the enemy you'll have access to a much smaller force than in the first game. In DoWII you'll only have control of about five or six squads at any one time. At first we were disappointed by this shift in emphasis. We loved steam-rolling over our enemy with generously-sized forces, complete with scores of infantry squads. But, having seen it for ourselves, we're convinced this new approach is going to work, and, crucially, be fun.

The reason? Each squad will be highly specialised, both in its combat proficiency and personality. You'll also be able to assign War Gear to your soldiers RPG style, ensuring a level of customisation most RTS games haven't even begun to think about. As you play through the campaign your men will grow stronger, from new recruit status to elite veterans, which should ensure they amount to more than mere cannon fodder. And you'll be able to jump into the action with your crack force straight away, with no need to wait for resources before you can pump out powerful units. All that base building malarkey has been chucked on the cutting room floor.

This inevitably has an impact on gameplay. With fewer squads individual marines become much more important, and keeping them alive will be nigh on essential. To help Relic has implemented a destructible cover system that's pretty much the best we've ever seen in an RTS. While cover will do a great job of protecting your oversized beefcakes, there are methods of flushing out dug-in bad guys. Grenades will smash cover to smithereens and flamers will ignore it completely. Cool cover is pointless without clever AI to govern how it's used, and Relic promises Space Marines so intelligent in this respect that they'd put Marcus Fenix's snap-to smarts to shame. Your squads will actively seek cover and, if it's obliterated, won't stand there and meet their deaths with gormless faces. They'll seek out new cover and start again.

If Dawn of War II's gameplay sounds familiar to you, it's probably because you've played Company of Heroes, Relic's other fantastic RTS from 2006 and, the developer admits, DoWII's greatest influence. Indeed, the game is powered by the Essence engine, the same piece of technology that made sure everything marched to the right tune in CoH. The similarities don't end there. Base building and resource gathering has been re-imagined in the form of what Relic calls 'strategems'. These stationary points of interest need to be captured before you can replace your fallen soldiers. Expect strategems of varied effects, from persistent bonuses to key, story-based strategems which affect the plot.

It's clear that Relic hasn't rested on its laurels and simply provided a graphical upgrade to the original DoW gameplay. Instead, it's attempting to combine what was best about that first game - the gory, cool, wonderfully animated gritty sci-fi action, with CoH's tighter gameplay, destructible environments and cover system. And fused it all together with a graphical upgrade. Because of this, DaWII will be a markedly different experience to the first game, but, we reckon, it'll be a much better one too. Hell, any game with the Tyranids has to rock, right?

Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War II is due out for PC early 2009.