Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War 2

We like what Relic Entertainment’s doing with Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II. Instead of tossing us a few new units with slightly snazzier graphics and calling it a day, they’re making some sweeping changes to the singleplayer campaign, killing some of the RTS genre’s most sacred cows by removing resource-gathering chores, and base management.

Collect resources. Build up your base. Climb the tech tree. Collect more resources. Pump out a ton of upgraded units and overwhelm the AI with an unstoppable army. Rinse, repeat, and you’ve got yourself a single-player campaign. That’s the way Dune II did it back in 1992. That’s the way StarCraft did it in 1998. And that’s the way the original Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War did it in 2004.

There’s a splash of dust as our drop pod dents the planet’s surface, but not the kind we like. It isn’t the sort of sod we’d club out of the ground in a round of golf with an Imperial Guard Commissar. It’s less familiar, less fertile. It’s soil on steroids: populated by mutated palms and wild bushes that not only look like they could have teeth, but poor dental plans.

In the year 40,000, the Human Empire is in decline. No longer great conquerers, mankind struggles simply to survive and hold on to its corner of the galaxy - which is easier said than done when a numberless horde of bloodthirsty space-faring Orks constantly pushes in on your borders, killing and pillaging for the sheer thrill of it.

“Our mantra is that things can only go in if they’re f---ing amazing,” says Relic’s Jonny Ebbert, the lead designer for Dawn of War 2. “It has to have massive visual impact.” Behind him loom giant images from Games Workshop’s overwrought military-gothic science fiction, and on the presentation screen an image of explosive bloodletting from the original Dawn of War. That game is four years old and