Dawn of War 2 Beta Preview

Inevitable Losses

However, while the Space Marines might sound like a squad of ultimate bad-asses packing the best weaponry in the entire galaxy, they’re enormously vulnerable to early game losses. At almost twice the cost of a comparable Tyranid squad to produce, losing just a single squad of Space Marines in the early stretches of a game can swing the battle inexorably in your opponents favour, and with just three men to a squad it’s frustratingly easy to do.

Although all units can be retreated back to your HQ with the press of the retreat button (another element carried over from Company of Heroes) their vulnerability to loses makes them exceedingly non-noob friendly, a surprise for the game's most recognisable race.

In fact, no matter what side you play as, the micro-management heavy gameplay in Dawn of War 2 multiplayer is probably going to be the biggest hurdle to overcome for many. You really can’t take your eyes off of troops, as the enormously varied array of special attacks means surprises and devastating blows, easy to avoid if you know what to expect, can cripple your army in literally seconds if you’re not paying complete attention.

I haven’t even mentioned the Commander unit’s command abilities either, apocalyptically powerful special attacks that, due to their for the most part enormous costs, usually aren’t employed until the late game, offering yet another pitfall for the inexperienced player.


What I’m trying to say here is that Dawn of War 2’s multiplayer beta is, at the moment, very, very inaccessible for the uninitiated. While the full game’s single player campaign will no doubt familiarise you with the myriad array of abilities you can wield and expect to have wielded against you (and their appropriate counters) going in cold without any real tutorial is more likely to turn players off than get them interested in the full game. Getting whupped by more skilled players over and over again is not a good advertisement.

The use of four armies so different from each other provides yet another obstacle for the uninitiated, and just when you think you know everything that the Tyranids might throw at you, you play a match against the Orks and are faced by a completely new set of units and challenges.

While we know this sort of knowledge, especially in an RTS, can come only with experience and time, the Dawn of War 2 Multiplayer beta doesn’t so much throw you in at the deep end as strap a heavy boulder to your back, tie a Tyranid swarm to your leg and then throw you into the middle of the ocean. Without a single player campaign or decent tutorial to first familiarise yourself with all the game play elements it soon becomes an exercise in confused frustration.


But we're not worried. Oh no. It’s clear from our time with the beta that there’s an enormous amount of potential here, and what now appears confusing and intimidating could, given more experience with both the single player and multiplayer aspects (and a swift boot up the arse of GFWL to sort out the match making system), become a very entertaining multiplayer RTS with a remarkably varied set of units allowing for a large number of branching strategies.

The ability to add a number of different upgrades to each unit within each race is, while daunting right now, a very exciting prospect, and we haven’t even mentioned the blindingly high level of polish and production values that’s been applied to the game by Relic. Whether you’re willing to slog through the multiplayer and learn from your mistakes now, or wait for the full game to get some experience from the single player campaign before heading online, Dawn of War 2 might just be worth that four year wait after all.

Dawn of War 2 will be released as a PC exclusive game by THQ and will be available to buy on the 19th of February.