Dawn of War 2

As the first and highly-anticipated Dawn of War 2 expansion pack, Chaos Rising, draws ever closer to its release date, the developer crew over at Relic Entertainment have been just about saturating us with more information in the way of interviews, teaser posts in the forums, livecasts, and videos. Today, we'll see what Dawn of War 2 multiplayer developers Josh Long and Clint Tasker have to say about some of the Chaos units, the direction they hope to take the game with Chaos Rising, and an additional multiplayer game mode that was mysteriously dropped since the original Dawn of War. Check out both of the videos below; the first is very short, while the second is over an hour in length and includes a 1v1 between Tyranids and Chaos, a second six-player game, and a full Q&A session at the end.



Note that the second video needs to fully load before you can play it.



Players who've followed the game since the first Dawn of War have surely already noted the vast improvement in the sheer variety Chaos offers as a race, with the marks of three different gods available to your units and commanders depending on your preferred style of play. The re-introduction of the free-for-all game mode is also welcome news, as it was a common multiplayer game style in the original game but was dropped completely in the sequel.

The second video showcases a lot more of the individual Chaos and Tyranid units thrown against each other, in the hands of Relic developers Stefan Haines (Ravener Alpha) and Bradon Chan (Plague Champion) as Josh Long and Clint Tasker narrate and explain the changes to the game. Also immediately obvious is the map the match is played on, a new one with a new tileset added in Chaos Rising with a very gloomy and immersive feel to it. A few of the highlights include the Plague Champion using his wargear to dispatch a Tyranid Ravener and then raise it as a zombie to fight for Chaos, the "Empyreal Abyss" Chaos zeal power, and the sheer resilience of Plague Marines, especially when supported by nearby Heretics. In the words of Josh Long:

"The Plague Marine passive regeneration, as you can see, is quite strong, but when combined with [the Heretics'] Nurgle worship, they will be able to stand up to most fire... once they get behind heavy cover, good luck killing them with any sort of ranged weaponry."

Also on display were the Tyranids' Tyrant Guard, elite bodyguard units that are equipped with the newly-revamped super-heavy infantry armor. Super-heavy infantry armor was a topic of much debate amongst the community in Dawn of War 2 as it had several damage modifiers that actually made the units bearing it more susceptible to incoming fire than other squads with "lower" armor classes. Josh Long also addressed this in the second video:

"Super-heavy armor stats... have been updated for Chaos Rising. It was kind of an ironic term to start with, in that it was kind of a death sentence for a lot of the units that did have this armor type... For the most part, for those of you who aren't familiar with what super-heavy armor did for you in Dawn of War 2, in a lot of the cases the super-heavy armor would take some things at like 150% or 200% damage, and a lot of the heavier damage types, things that would come from like D-cannons and plasma cannons, even plasma guns, would all do really heavy damage to super-heavy armor. Those have all been reduced, most of them to about 100%, so things like missiles and bright lances are still gonna be able to hit those targets, because they're large targets, things like Terminators and Tyrant Guard, but they're not gonna do nearly as much bonus damage as they would before. So hopefully super-heavy armor is actually a boon rather than some sort of mysterious penalty to the units that have it."

With the departure of former Lead Designer Johnny Ebbert, the collective community is no doubt watching closely to see where the new Relic leadership takes the game with Chaos Rising, and from the look and sound of what we've been given so far it looks like Dawn of War 2 will become more competitive, with the expansion making numerous fixes and modifications to the game that its player base have been demanding for months. As Josh Long said in the first video, they do read the forums and try to give us what we want, and by all appearances, Chaos Rising will deliver on that notion quite well.

Chaos Rising is still slated for a mid-March release date, so stand by for more last-minute teasers. In the meantime, feel free to discuss the expansion in the Dawn of War 2 News & Discussion forum.