Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War – Soulstorm

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War – Soulstorm
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Developer(s)	Iron Lore Entertainment Relic Entertainment (Patches)
Publisher(s)	THQ (former) Sega (current)
Designer(s)	Ian Frazier
Composer(s)	Inon Zur
Engine	Impossible Creatures Engine (heavily modified)
Platforms	Microsoft Windows
Release date(s)
Genre(s)	Real-time strategy
Mode(s)	Single-player, multiplayer

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War – Soulstorm is the third expansion to the real-time strategy video game Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War, developed by Iron Lore Entertainment. Like its predecessors, Soulstorm is based on Games Workshop's tabletop wargame Warhammer 40,000, and introduces a multitude of new features to the Dawn of War series. It can be used in a stand-alone and so does not need the original Dawn of War disc to run, but players must have the prior games installed and valid cd-keys in order to play as anything but the two new races online.

Gameplay

Gameplay features real-time strategy interaction. Game operation is similar to previous Warhammer titles, except for the new aerial units that do not follow these rules, and new campaign gameplay features.

Each race is given a new aerial unit which does not obey the normal rule of engagement in the Dawn of War series. These units are mostly specialists in engaging and destroying enemy vehicles and/or infantry.

Campaign

The Kaurava conflict began after a sudden appearance of a Warp Storm near Kaurava IV. The nine races were drawn to investigate the system with their own fleets and conflicting intentions. However, the Warp Storm wreaked havoc on their navigation interfaces, stranding them on the four planets and three moons of the system. The nine factions are then forced to battle between planets to ultimately conquer the planetary system and discover the reason for the warp storm.

The reason for the Warp Storm, as explained after the conquest of Chaos Forces, began with an ignorant Imperial Guardsman with latent psyker genes who was whispered to by the Chaos Gods, telling him to prepare a ritual. His actions unknowingly summoned the Alpha Legion to the Kaurava System, thus starting the conflict.

As with its predecessor Dark Crusade, Soulstorm features a "meta-campaign" featuring 31 territories spread over four planets and three moons.

One difference however, is that unlike Dark Crusade, there are no persistent bases. Once the player conquers a province, the base structures the player has built up will not be present in future conflicts. This can be remedied by reinforcing provinces with buildings and units in between battles, or by establishing a forward base using the Sisters of Battle army ability. Each Stronghold has a unique ability, each race starts with that ability.

Another difference is that the strength of an attacking enemy army is no longer based on strength of province they're attacking from, but their army size.

See also: List of Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War characters

The fate of the Kaurava System depends on the actions taken by the various factions fighting over it, but the only known details on the canonical ending come from dialogue in the sequel, Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II. Scout Sergeant Cyrus states that the Kaurava campaign was a failure, and that the majority of the Blood Ravens led by Captain Indrick Boreale were wiped out, costing the chapter half of its manpower in a single campaign. As a result, the severely undermanned Blood Ravens cannot afford to lose their recruiting worlds in sub-sector Aurelia and must defend them at all costs. It is unknown which faction is the canon victor as it could be the Tau, Sisters of Battle, Imperial Guard, or one of the other factions-what is known is the Blood Ravens are not the canon victors based on Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II.

Multiplayer

Multiplayer remains the same as in previous titles, with players given the ability to either play via LAN or on the Gamespy network. A new 'medal' system has been added that provides rewards for certain player milestones (5-to-1 kill ratio, etc.), but there is no means of viewing the complete collection of medals a player has earned. It is assumed this problem will be addressed when an official patch is released along with other various bug fixes and corrections to the game, such as the current issue restricting certain masses of players from joining online multiplayer games.

Development

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War – Soulstorm was developed by Iron Lore Entertainment as the third expansion to the Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War. On January 13, 2008, Relic released a 1.12 GB demo of Soulstorm on several gaming websites. The demo allows players to play a tutorial, as well as one skirmish and one scenario map as the Dark Eldar. The demo's loading screens also show the new additional flying units added in the expansion. The demo scenario simulates an assault on the Space Marine stronghold if one were playing the Dark Eldar in the campaign game.

On March 4, 2008, Soulstorm was released first on the North American market, some days later everywhere else. After the end of official patch support, the game's community continued the support with own made unofficial patches.

Reception

Soulstorm received generally positive reviews from critics. As of November 2012, the game had an average score of 74% based on 35 reviews on the review aggregator GameRankings. On Metacritic, the game had an average score of 73 out of 100, based on 37 reviews — indicating mixed or average reviews. IGN gave the game a score of 7 out of 10, citing solid gameplay but lack of anything innovative.

External links

• Official website