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In the grim darkness of the future, there is a sequel. Five years ago, Relic's Dawn of War game brought the tabletop miniature battles of Warhammer 40K to the PC with great acclaim. The sequel went gold in January and released a multiplayer beta on Steam in February. The Space Marines, Orks and Eldar return and, for the first time, the alien Tyranid swarm join the party! For the latest on how this game is planning to take the world by storm bolter, I stopped by the Relic studio to play the latest build of the game and chat with Jonny Ebbert, the lead designer.

For those who are new to it, Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II is an RTS game that comes with two very different flavors.

Second is the multiplayer battle game for 2-6 players that everybody's already seen. It lets you choose from four races - the elite human Space Marines, the savage Orks, the mysterious Eldar or the Tyranid swarm; each with three different commander units. As you play, you collect Requisition and Energy points to spend on more units or upgrades. These points accrue as you play, but you get more if you capture and hold map objectives. If that's not enough to get you into the thick of things, there's a third resource that you only get from actually battling that lets you activate race/commander specific bonuses - from temporary boosts to spawning super-powerful elite units. Games are won by holding key map points to reduce your opponent's score to zero, or by wiping them out utterly.

First is the single-player game that puts you in charge of a new Space Marine commander and throws you into the thick of an Ork battle. With no reinfocements, base or resources to worry about, you lead your commander and a squad of marines into combat. As you play you get more units to control, learning how to use their abilities as you go. Each unit has a commander that you get to know as you play, each one becoming part of your team through the course of the 20-40 hour campaign. Soldiers in each unit can die and be replenished with reinforcements, but the commander can always be revived. As you play you also pick up items and gain experience to level-up between missions. Levelling up lets you choose new skills for your heroes, letting you build them into custom squads through the game. Here's a look at the Squad Load Out screen where you assign points and equip wargear found in each level.

You can even recycle wargear into XP if you don't want to hang onto it, or need a quick boost to get someone up a level so they can use a different piece of wargear. In missions you can also recapture different military installations on some levels, giving you access to different power-ups later in the game depending on what you capture. All these options really let you customize your troops so you can play the way you want.

Next up we have more info on Tyranids, a boss battle video, Day Zero and upcoming expansions!