The US Homepage.
The Original Teaser.
A gameplay montage.
Relicnews Forum wrote:
1. There will certainly be devastator squads. This is from both Ebbert's mouth and unit descriptions in the gameplay video shown.
2. There will be a major announcement in 5-6 weeks, revealing much new information including but not necessarily limited to information about the game's multi player aspect. This will be found on major gaming news websites, Ebbert could not mention a specific news site to watch. (when questioned, Ebbert did not mention any special party, event, or presentation that fans could attend)
3. For now, Relic is still not willing to talk about the possibility of Tyranids or, really, anything outside of the SM campaign. When further questioned about Tyranids, Ebbert responded to the effect that 'we're not blind, deaf or stupid. we watch the forums and are trying to give the players what they want'
4. It's confirmed that squad leaders don't die permanently. Loss of all forces or mission failure results in an emergency evacuation by Thunderhawk gunship so that your leaders, at least, are not lost. Part of what drives this decision is the design team's stance against taking away the player's carefully constructed army and forcing the player to start over from nothing as so often happens in a traditional RTS. DoW 2 is clearly borrowing heavily from the force persistence that was central to the Homeworld series.
5. The campaign is to be a compromise between the free-form DC and SS style of campaign and the story-driven but linear WA and vanilla DoW campaigns. The intent is that the player will decide for him/herself how and where to go about 'saving an entire sector of the galaxy' rather than going along with a plan of action devised by the story writers, but the story will still be central to the action.
6. When questioned as to whether the story will tie in with or continue from the events of DoW 1, Ebbert responded to the effect that we will be seeing some familiar faces in the DoW2 story.
7. When questioned regarding chaos, specifically whether or not fans will get to see gods other than Khorne represented at some point, Ebbert indicated that as a tabletop Chaos player he would ensure that Chaos players received some love. his specific wording, which I was unable to record, did hint that Chaos might be featured or expanded upon in a later expansion rather than in the initial release.
Careful observation of the few new screens and video shown at the presentation gives us the following:
1. Suppression and retreat exist in a form quite similar to CoH, though the specifics are not 100% clear. Ebbert also stated that retreating AI squads should be wiped out to prevent them alerting larger forces to your presence and calling reinforcements.
2. based on what looked like a mockup squad selection screen, the SM campaign will feature the Force Commander (possibly a squad unto himself or a command squad), 2 tactical squads (one of the Sergeants had a bolter, the other a flamer) 2 devastator squads (one Sgt. had HB, the other ML) a scout squad, an assault squad (jet packs may be optional, the sergeant didn't seem to have one) and 2 vehicles (looked like a rhino/razorback and a predator if memory serves). As to whether the player chooses 6 of these, or the FC and vehicles don't count towards the '6 squad limit' previously established, I didn't think to ask.
3. Jump pack assault marines leave craters upon landing. These craters can be used for cover. As in CoH, directional cover, deformable terrain, and destructible buildings will all interact to affect the battlefield, creating and destroying cover while opening and closing possible routes of advance.
4. meltabombs and other wargear are as useful for clearing paths through difficult terrain (such as taking down tall walls or possibly occupied buildings) as for killing enemies.
5. based on a concept/render pic showing a vast array of melee weapons and a second pic of the scout squad outfitting screen, there will be a very huge variety of wargear available to your squads, leaders. Fans of swords, axes, and hammers will be well pleased, though I don't recall seeing much in the way of maces or other melee weapons. That said, I don't think the 2 pics shown represent all the possible wargear choices.
Tyranids Confirmed.
A gameplay video of the Blood Ravens and Tyranids.
And now a slight modification to an earlier video.
