WARHAMMER 40,000: DAWN OF WAR III
Tabletop gaming comes alive, but death’s never far off
THE GRIM DARKNESS of the far future, in which there is only war, has turned out to be a fun place to hang out. The Warhammer 40,000 setting has spawned many videogames, but it’s DawnofWar’s sprawling RTS battles, and its sequel’s more focused skirmishes, that have done the most for the Emperor’s cause, recreating the tabletop game better than any first-person shooter ever could.
The third game attempts to combine the scope of the first two, with three factions ( Humans/Space Marines, Orks, and Eldar) duking it out on a planet for a lost Eldar artifact. There’s building of bases, management of resources, and scenes where walking metal hulks tear into each other. Single-player rotates you between races, building up a story seen from every side, then twisting it at the end. It serves as a tutorial for the MOBAinfluenced multiplayer, introducing the full range of mechanics, and even managing some mouse-throwing moments.
Our Space Marine captain refusing to disengage from combat while we fruitlessly clicked on a health pickup was a low point, the suicidal need to kill Orks exposing the lack of checkpointing and need to quicksave regularly, as we returned to the very beginning of the mission. Couple this with the troops’ new-found ability to die really easily, plus the lack of any real cover mechanic, and tooth-grinding can set in.
That last point has been dealt with in a strange way, with areas of cover available for capture, before they pop a shield over your troops. Clearing it out, therefore, becomes an attritional battle of grinding down the shield, or jumping melee units into the middle to gleefully slaughter everyone who thought they were safe. The result is that you get a lot of open battles, rather than sniping at one another, and while line of sight and elevation all play their parts, 40K’s tendency to push troops into close combat means the fighting becomes more closely packed, and you rarely feel like you’re taking advantage of the environment.
Adding to this feeling are the elite units. You always have one stomping around, and they’ve got a huge health bar, a couple of special abilities, and become the backbone of your army. A common objective is for an elite unit to survive, so sustained damage to that unit, along with the occasional lack of clarity about how high the terrain is, can mean the end of your hero.
When it all goes right, however, the blood splatter and rending of metal becomes hugely satisfying. Punching through a mass of Orks with a surgical team of Eldar never gets old, but single-player may struggle to hold your attention if you’re not buying it mainly for multiplayer battles.