warhammer-40000-dawn-of-war-ii posts

Warhammer 40,000 Dawn of War II Retribution is still on track for its release on March 1 and today publisher THQ announced plans for both a Collector's Edition of the stand alone RTS expansion pack as well as some pre-order extras for the Relic Entertainment-developed game.

The Collector's Edition, priced at $39.99, will only be available to purchase at THQ.com's online store. It will come in an exclusive box, contain a new poster and six race art cards and all of the bonus wargear for all six playable factions in the game. The regular $29.99 edition of the game will give the player the option of pre-ordering one of the six race packs. THQ.com buyers get exclusive access to the Tyranid race pack while Steam owners have the exclusive on the Ork Race Pack. The other four race packs (Space Marine, Chaos Space Marine, Eldar and Imperial Guard) are also available to choose from. After the game is released, THQ will offer all of the race packs to purchase on Steam " for a nominal fee."

In less than 36 hours what could be the biggest PC game of 2010 in terms of sales is due for release, and it's not Tron Evolution. You can check out the coverage of World of Warcraft Catalysm over at our sister site WoW Insider.

• Speaking of that game you can now check out the newly launched official World of Warcraft community page.
• Australia is one step closer to having an adults rating for PC and console games ... maybe.
• That previously announced Red Faction TV movie on Syfy starts filming in January and will be broadcast in May.
• Check out some hardcore Super Meat Boy level runs.
• While PC gamers await the release of Assassin's Creed Brotherhood, there's a survey asking people about features for the next game.
• Natural Selection 2 has a new patch for its beta users.
• A minor patch for Warhammer 40,000 Dawn of War II is due for release Monday.

It's hard to find out exactly how well the PC game industry is doing since a large part of the business, which includes digital downloads of full games and DLC releases, doesn't have its revenues released to the public. Indeed THQ CEO Brian Farrell stated in a new chat with GameSpot that the industry's biggest follower of sales, The NPD Group, offers up "no DLC revenues, no MMO subscription revenues" when it releases its numbers.

However he did give a tiny clue as to how the publisher's PC download revenues are doing, saying, " Our Steam business is going through the roof, but that's again, not reported as part of NPD." That would seem to indicate that the PC game business is much bigger than what the general consensus says it is.

Warhammer 40,000 Dawn of War II Retribution was announced a little while ago but we are still learning things about the upcoming RTS stand alone expansion pack from developer Relic and publisher THQ. Today it was revealed that the game will feature the Tyranids in the game's single player campaign.

As PC Gamer's web site reveals, the spiky-looking alien race will actually be depicted as a hero unit, the Swarmlord, in the game's single player campaign. However that one hero will be able to generate other smaller Tyranids like Hormagaunts and Termagants. In fact with this set up you could control as many as 140 units with the Swarmlord which is a significant departure from Dawn of War II's typical small squad-based unit set-up. Even more single player content has yet to be revealed for the game which is due out in March 2011.

Unlike what you would expect out of most elves, the Eldar in Warhammer 40k are hardcore, slit-your-throat badasses. This is made blatantly apparent in this Retribution trailer, which depicts the highly-advanced Eldar forces fighting against a tide of the dead and damned. The result is sheer carnage, and we wouldn't have it any other way. Showcased goodies include the Eldar Avatar of Khaine, a Great Unclean One (Greater Daemon of Nurgle), and hordes of both factions' basic troops. Those looking for the gory, visceral combat from the original game will be greatly please by this trailer, and it certainly ends with a bang.

When developer Relic released Warhammer 40,000 Dawn of War II back in 2009 it used Microsoft's Games For Windows Live clients for updates, achievements and other features, The first expansion pack Chaos Rising, released earlier this year, also used Games For Windows Live. Today, Relic announced that the next game in the sci-fi RTS series, Dawn of War II Retribution, will switch over and use Valve's Steamworks system.

Relic stated that the switch to Steamworks will allow them to do things for Retribution like "guest passes, free multiplayer weekends, pre-loading and the ability to provide fast turn-around on future patches and updates." Unfortunately Steamworks support won't be added to the original game or Chaos Rising nor will the content in Retribution be added to those to games when Retribution is released in the first quarter of 2011. The good news is that owners of the original game and Chaos Rising will be able to participate in a multiplayer beta of Retribution via Steam sometime in 2011.

This is the latest game franchise to dump Games For Windows Live for Steam. Bethesda Softworks announced earlier this year that Fallout: New Vegas would use Steamworks after using Games For Windows Live for Fallout 3 and Square Enix used Steamworks for Kane and Lynch 2 after using Games For Windows Live for the original game.

Download HD Dawn of War II: Retribution Announcement Trailer (165 MB)

It's time for two more PC games to get their prices sliced in Direct2Drive's latest daily sale. This time the games in question both come from THQ's Relic Entertainment. Two of Relic's acclaimed RTS games are now on sale until Monday.

One is Relic's WWII-themed title Company of Heroes. You can grab from Direct2Drive for just $4.95. The other is a more recent game, Warhammer 40,000 Dawn of War II. That game is on sale for $14.95, a 50 percent price difference. Don't forget that Direct2Drive also has a selection of PC games on sale for just $6 each until Wednesday.

The Warhammer 40,000 franchise is a huge one for publisher THQ. The company has released a number of games based on Games Workshop's table top war game title and more are in the works. In a new interview at Eurogamer, THQ VP Danny Bilson is already talking about plans to release Warhammer 40,000 Dawn of War III.

THQ has already announced plans to release Warhammer 40,000 Dawn of War II Retribution, the second stand alone expansion for the RTS game from developer Relic. Bilson states, "Retribution's going to ship in February (2011), and then we start laying out Dawn of War III. You can probably expect it between 18 months and two years after that." That would put the game's release between late 2012 and early 2013.

Bilson also says that Dawn of War III could be released as a free-to-play title similar to what's happening with the upcoming Company of Heroes Online. Bilson states, "It all depends on how COHO does, and how it works and how people respond to it." The game itself, no matter its final format, will have "a much larger strategic component to it, more of a global battle going on with little tactical things, sort of MMO-like."

Fans of developer Relic's Warhammer 40,000 Dawn of War II RTS series will be getting some more action out of that franchise next year. Publisher THQ has just announced plans to release Warhammer 40,000 Dawn of War II Retribution. It's the second stand alone expansion for the series.

Due for release in the first quarter of 2011, the game will have a multi-race single player campaign in a storyline that takes place years after the events of the first expansion, Chaos Rising. The Orks are so far the only race that has been revealed for the campaign but the press release reveals that an all new playable faction will be added for Retribution. More new multiplayer maps and units will also be a part of the expansion.

Fans of developer Relic's sci-fi RTS game Warhammer 40,000 Dawn of War II just got access to a new and massive patch for the game via Steam. The 2009 released game is getting a number of new features in this "Eternal War" patch including the addition of Free For All and Team Free For All gameplay modes in online matchmaking. A new map, The White Walls of Calderis, has also been added in the patch.

There are also quite a few bug fixes in the patch along with tons of balance changes for units in the game's various factions. The patch also makes it easier to load third-party mods for the game. A Q&A has also been posted on the game's forums that goes over a number of the new changes and the reasons they were made.