Dawn of War II: Chaos Rising Hands-on

by Jeff Haynes - IGN.com | 29 October 2009 12:00
 
The forces of Chaos are on the move. Can you defeat them?
 
There are some fights that you would just love to see regardless of the price of admission or what it would take to get the battle set up. Ali vs Frazier, pirates vs ninja and Aliens versus Predators (minus the idiotic human side angle from Hollywood) are just some of the ones that readily come to mind. The same can be said about the Warhammer 40,000 universe, which has had its share of brutal conflicts across tabletops and videogames for years, most notably in THQ's Dawn of War franchise. While players have enjoyed fighting against each other as Space Marines, Orks, Tyranids and Eldar, the marquee matchup that fans have really wanted to see was a brutal fight to the death with the Imperium against Chaos Space Marines. Well, that wish will soon be granted, as THQ and Relic will release Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II – Chaos Rising, a new expansion pack that will pit the Blood Ravens against their mortal enemy. At a recent event, I had a chance to get some hands on time with two missions of the game, as well as see the destructive power of the new faction in their malevolent glory.
 
While I didn't get any significant plot details of the expansion pack, I was told that Chaos Rising takes place a few months after the events of Dawn of War II. The two missions that I played on were set on the Blood Ravens' homeworld of Aurelia, which had disappeared for a thousand years into the Warp, the alternate universe where many of the Chaos Daemons reside. After emerging suddenly from this strange dimension, many of the Imperium soldiers and Space Marines returned to reclaim the planet and its cities which had become encased in ice. Obviously, it became a valuable site to explore and potentially restore for the glory of the Emperor.
 

Watch or download the trailer here (HD available).Whereas Dawn of War II allowed players to develop characters from level one to level twenty, Chaos Rising will up the level cap to level thirty providing new items, characters and abilities while adding the newest chapter in the Blood Ravens saga. Players that have their customized soldiers will be able to bring their stats and abilities that they chose forward into the expansion pack if they don't choose to re-spec their warriors, taking advantage of larger redesigned skill trees. However, all gear acquired from the first game has been lost, forcing your soldiers to reacquire new equipment in the field and as rewards for their missions. For example, Thaddeus had a new lightning claw that provided significant melee damage, and players could pickup meltaguns to destroy vehicles. Fortunately, the number of items that you can acquire in missions has also grown, and players will discover that the supplies your troops acquire are now unique to particular units as well, being assigned instantly to those squads when you pick them up.
 
The first mission that I played was called Angel Forge, which took place three days into the campaign and tasked the Blood Ravens with discovering the motives behind a squad of rogue guardsmen that drove a large group of Orks into a city. What struck me with the briefing of the mission is that now players are provided with additional information as to what you can potentially expect to face in that mission, and are even given hints as to whether you need a squad with jump jets or stealth is vital to your success. Furthermore, players are provided with the opportunity to ask additional questions of your commanders to get a better idea of what you and your squads will face when they get planetside.
 

Would you want to face this on a desolate planet? Didn't think so.

To help the Ravens clean up the situation and punish the soldiers, Jonah the Librarian had been dispatched to help out the warriors. A new controllable character known as a psyker, the Librarian is the Warhammer universe's version of a spellcaster, wielding different tomes and abilities to purge the enemies of the Emperor. While you get basic spells by his skill tree, each one can be expanded with new gear to strengthen the effects. For example, Jonah was able to use Purify to heal the troops of each squad, Smite to cast psychic lightning bolts and Ignite Soul to toss fireballs at targets and cause them to explode.
 
After being deployed in the ruined outskirts of a city, the Ravens fought their way through a number of Ork infested neighborhoods, which required them to blast their way through squads of enemies and clear out buildings of snipers. Every now and then, however, an Ork battle wagon would appear, which would take the attention of most squads (or a few well placed grenades) to destroy these threats. Eventually, after killing the Orks, I was able to lead my troops to the outskirts of a base, whose massive gate was closed, preventing my soldiers from providing immediate assistance to soldiers being attacked on the other side of the walls. Fortunately, I was able to use jump jets to leap on top of the walls of the base and open the gate for my soldiers to enter the battle. Of course, this was anticipated by the enemy, and as I started to move into position, the troops were taunted by the leader of the Chaos Marines, who revealed himself to be Eliphas, the old enemy of Davian Thule, who sought to claim the entire planet for himself. Eliphas had send down a large contingent of troops to Angel Forge, including heretics and squads of Chaos Space Marines lead by Aspiring Champions, the elite warriors of this evil faction. These were clearly dangerous fighters, down to the banners constructed from the face of a Space Marine and their human skin capes.
 
Fighting through these enemies was complicated because of their numbers, but fortunately, some of the guardsmen still loyal to the Emperor provided additional fire support as I was able to move my squads up to help quell the insurrection of soldiers. Chasing down Eliphas, however, was another matter. As I closed in on his location, it was clear that this fallen warrior would not go down so easily, and he called in a Chaos Dreadnaught to cover his retreat. This was clearly the most threatening machine that I had faced up to this point, and with good reason: the machine packed a power claw and a missile launcher which it used effectively to whittle down the health of my forces. Coupled with its expanded health, its attacks, and intimidating appearance (including a cage with a full human skeleton of a fallen enemy), the Dreadnaught put up quite a fight, primarily because Chaos Rising was taking into account the new weapon stats that tracked how well an attack did against infantry, vehicles and buildings. Not every unit had a weapon that caused a ton of damage against the machine, so it took quite a while to destroy it. Of course, this provided Eliphas with the escape he needed, and the Blood Ravens departed to fight another day.
 

Behold the Lord of Chaos in his marine skinning glory.

Like Dawn of War II, players receive various bonuses and rewards based on their performance in battle. However, there's more of an impact to your players that simply acquiring gear and experience. Thanks to the appearance of the Chaos Marines, your soldiers will find themselves tainted by the corruption on their souls during each mission, which will affect your troops and their abilities. In fact, this adds a new feature to the game represented by a morality bar which indicates how far you've fallen under the chaotic shadow based on your actions. For example, while I jump jetted on top of the base walls, I could have directed my troops to blast through the gate itself, which would have corrupted my forces because they would have left the few remaining defenders open to future attacks from enemies. I was told that each mission that you take on will have variable corruption objectives that you can be presented with, such as not retreating from the enemy or searching the entire map to avoid its effects, and that there would also be different redeeming missions as well.
 
Why is this important? You'll gain new abilities for succumbing to this corruption, but you'll also lose a number of bonuses to inherent abilities as well. It's a tradeoff for abandoning the commands of the Emperor. What's more, you'll also have to pay attention to how your actions and decisions affect your troops. Not only will the characters under your command respond to the actions you commit with different comments, but some could be corrupted at times if you choose not to bring them into battle or perform an action they don't agree with in battle. Along with these character options comes the addition of Corruption Gear, specific equipment designed for characters embracing chaos, which boosts your corruption rate while providing different abilities and skills as well. It's up to you to decide whether it's worth it to descend into madness to defeat the Chaos Marines, or if you'll take their gear and potentially redeem it by sending it to the Librarium.
 
Unlike the previous game, where you'd essentially wind up jettisoning gear for experience rewards, Chaos Rising turns that trash can feature into a new area called the Librarium where unwanted material is collected for study by the Space Marine's Librarians and personnel. By donating these items, players are provided with any number of rewards. At times, you'll collect experience points that can be used for your troops, while other times you'll receive new gear as a trade off. Some of this gear will be randomly decided at times, but I was told that depending on what you provide to the Librarium, you'll sometimes receive the option to choose which gear you'll gain for a particular squad, giving you more of a reason to determine what you want or need and what you can toss.
 

Alright, Chaos -- come get some.

The second mission that I was able to check out took place once again on Aurelia, but during a bit of a crisis. Thanks to whatever Eliphas and his Chaos Marines were doing, they'd managed to open up a black hole into the middle of the planet, and the force of the anomaly was ripping the mass of the world into large blocks of ice slowly being sucked into its center. On one of these chunks was a battlefield named Selenon Assault, so called because Eliphas and his Black Legion had gained a new foothold on the surface and was holding the charter keep of the Blood Ravens hostage. To break through the legions forces, the Imperium provided me with two tanks: an Annihilator designed to blow apart vehicles and a Devastator whose mini-guns were geared to shred infantry. At the start of the mission, I only had command of these two vehicles, and I needed to clear a landing zone for my squads to land on the surface through hordes of plague marines, Dreadnaughts and Bloodletters, the Chaos demons that had been clearly summoned in the defense of the keep. While I managed to eventually fight through and establish a beachhead, this was a minor victory, as I found that leading my troops through an extensive and bloody battlefield where I cut down a large number of Chaos Marines only oversaw a larger area swarming with Chaos forces, including Bloodletters riding robotic bull-like creatures known as Juggernauts and a large division of Dreadnaughts. However, before I could attempt to provide defense against this onslaught of troops, the demo ended.
 
Chaos Rising will feature fifteen or so missions within the single player campaign, as well as co-op play and multiplayer matches. The librarian unit will be added to multiplayer, while two new heroes will be added to The Last Stand mode: a Chaos Marine hero and a Tyranid Hero will be packed in for players to fight with. While I was told that there are still a number of values that are being manipulated and balanced, such as the damage caused by the librarian and other units, playing the demo made me want to immediately pick up Dawn of War II and prepare for the impending chaotic invasion, which is scheduled to come out in March 2010.
 
Supplied by IGN.com