Warhammer 40000: Dawn of war 2 Review

Dawn of War 2 is the continuation of the Relic RTS legacy. Like in Dawn of War you take up arms and dive into the grim future of the 41st millennium as a commander of one of the 4 factions included in the game. Keep in mind, in the 41st millennium there is only war!

Good

Art Style: The artstyle is pretty unique and doesn’t focus on realism, but also manages to keep all the effects and textures for armor and weapons to top notch quality.

User Interface: The interface in Dawn of War 2 is looking great. You get a big UI with all the information you need. Your squads are all displayed on the right along with the team they belong to and the hotkey to select it. In the campaign you even see the number of squad members alive.

Multiplayer: Relic took the successful recipe from their Company of Heroes games and used it to make Dawn of War 2 after changing a few things here and there. This means that units have roles, advantages, disadvantages, abilities and they can take cover all over the battlefield, buildings included. Another thing that remained the same is the importance of map control.

Sound: The audio is simply great! The explosions and special effects come crystal clear with enough but not too much bass. The audio is also positional so you can “hear” the location of the unit talking, which is really helpful during the mayhem of big battles, when you are focusing at one side of the map and a lone unit is dying at the other.

The voice over is great. Over the top quotes, just like the original Dawn of War, and units sounding exactly like you’d expect them to sound and saying the correct thing at the correct time make for a pleasant experience. For instance when your Force Commander is ordered to attack enemy Space Marines he can be heard saying “Sad is the day when Space Marine fights Space Marine” or “He’s no brother of mine!” Same goes for units that have taken damage where you can hear the pain or fear in their voices.

Bad

No Base Building: Forget base building. Dawn of War 2 has focused on micro management instead of macro management. In Dawn of War 2 you start out with only one building, your headquarters. There you produce your units and tier upgrades. Tier upgrades are just like Dawn of War 1, where each tier upgrade gives you access to new units and more Zeal Powers which we will talk about later.

Conclusion

Dawn of War 2 is an excellent RTS and a great game in general. It also keeps expanding with free content through patches and the upcoming expansion packs which will add new armies. They haven’t been announced yet but they are certain to come since some major factions with a huge fanbase have been left out and Relic always follows this road with their games anyway.
If you like the Warhammer 40000 universe or just enjoy a good RTS game you should have it already and if not, get it fast.

That is of course if you like tactics and micromanagement over building a base and making a huge army. Others, reviewers included, have complained about the lack of base building and said that it’s actually a step backward but that’s not really the case. Not by a long shot. I play RTS for the combat and not for the building so DOW2 came like a pleasant innovation to the RTS genre for me.

Warhammer 40000: Dawn of war 2 Review by Atrum