Never mess with a pirate Ork.
While there are many fine PC-exclusive co-op games, they don’t come as often as they should. When it was released in 2009, the original Dawn of War 2 was a breath of fresh air; stripping out excessive micromanagement that normally plagues RTS games in favor of small squad combat, adding in a robust loot and leveling mechanic, and a glorious helping of co-op. With one successful expansion under its belt, Relic has decided to change things up slightly with the latest iteration: Retribution.
Taking place ten years after the events of Chaos Rising, the previous expansion, the Emperor decides he’s had enough with this troubled sector and orders an Exterminatus, which is basically a blanket order for glassing every planet in sight. Unfortunately, the reason this order came through may be for false ones, so the campaign centers around trying to determine how it can be stopped.
Rather than another romp with the Blood Ravens alone, Retribution allows you to select from an additional five races to see the story from their perspective. Gameplay itself hasn’t changed too much from the previous version, although you are now able to call in basic squads to supplement your forces by capturing bases. These bases also heal injured units, resurrect fallen heroes, and call in reinforcements for any squads that have suffered casualties. Field upgrades make their return from the original Dawn of War games, allowing you to specialize squads depending on what challenges might crop up during the campaign.
Leveling your Hero units has been streamlined, but still allows for great customization.
The currency (requisition/energy) for all of these squads and upgrades is obtained in set amounts in each mission, and your population cap is determined by your initial squad setup. While hero units are still the focus, and the only units that can be outfitted with wargear collected during the missions, you may now choose to use an Honor Guard in their place, which range from upgraded basic squads to vehicles. Taking an Honor Guard over a Hero unit may result in a weaker starting force, but you gain the benefit of being able to recruit a more perse force in larger numbers. Honor Guards also have the benefit of being reinforced free-of-charge.
Between levels, rather than only obtaining wargear upgrades, you can also choose to acquire upgrades to your basic units as well. These upgrades come in the form of additional field upgrades, such as a special weapon, or adding commander units, bolstering its strength. Your Heroes still level up, but their skill trees are now streamlined - rather than building gradually towards new abilities, each point you put in a combat discipline will earn a significant new ability for your hero. The best part of the new system is that if you choose to take an Honor Guard over a hero, some of the abilities transfer over to the basic units, making them more powerful. There’s a real give-and-take dynamic in place now when determining how to deploy for a mission; do you go for the Heroes with all of their gear and abilities, or do you opt for stronger and more numerous units?
While all this sounds good on paper, in execution it’s slightly less impressive. You see, no matter what race you select, you’re playing on the same campaign maps in roughly the same order. The campaign is shorter, more generic than its predecessors, and the story is altered only slightly to fit each race’s particulars. In the end, everyone is working to stop the Exterminatus. Combat is still entertaining and brutal, but there’s definitely something missing.
The Imperial Guard, shooting whatever is behind that threatening rock.
But enough about the single-player stuff, let’s move on to what really matters. As with Dawn of War 2 and Chaos Rising, the campaign supports drop-in/drop-out co-op, with the second player taking control of two of the Hero/Honor Guard units. As in its predecessors, this is great fun, and communicating strategies on the fly makes up for the more generic campaign. Both players share the same requisition, energy and population cap, so be sure to inform your co-op partner before you start recruiting squads or taking field upgrades. Seeing how your partner levels the units under their control is always interesting, and often opens up strategies you might not use if left to your own devices.
Both previous games had Games of Windows Live support, though Retribution has scrapped it in favor of deeper Steam integration. Bringing friends into games is slightly less of a hassle, mostly due to the fact you don’t run the risk of finding a friend on their Xbox 360 and pestering them to switch over to their PC to join you. Your stats and campaign progress are also tracked through Steam (though curiously, playing any race in the campaign appears to mark their campaign progress as complete, regardless of whether you have or not), as are your delicious, delicious achievements.
Speaking of achievements, several (but not all!) are specifically flagged as being earnable only by the host in co-op, which is sad, though similar to previous entries in the series. Instead, if you play a certain number of missions in co-op as the guest, you will earn wargear to transfer back to your own playthrough (complete with cute co-op themed names) of whatever campaign you were on, which is a nice touch.
OK, maybe you CAN mess with an Ork pirate...
Though the campaign co-op is always a hoot, my go-to mode in Dawn of War 2 is The Last Stand, and it returns in all its glory. For those unfamiliar, it’s a three-player survival mode where each player selects one of the Hero units from a race of their choice and faces off against twenty waves of enemies. Your ability to work together is put to the ultimate test, as selfish play is a great way to get slaughtered.
The five selectable Hero units from previous entries return and are complimented by the new Lord General from the Imperial Guard race, though the unlockables (wargear, commander items, etc.) remain the same as before. Several of the Hero units can spawn a secondary squad, or a turret, which are really helpful in making up for ability gaps caused by players picking the same hero.
A new, more challenging map, The Anvil of Khorne has been added as well, and man is it a doozy. While the previous map eased you in and gave you a chance to get situated and your towers captured, Anvil spawns a tough wave almost immediately after the players load. It caught me off guard at first, and you can almost always tell if someone hasn’t played it yet in a matchmaking round, which can either lead to comedy or drama in the chat channel, though the community surrounding this game is usually friendly and forgiving of lesser-skilled players.
Unfortunately, the latency problems that have plagued this series since the beginning make their return, and about one in every five matches is almost completely unplayable. I had much better luck with forming a party of friends than in matchmaking, so if you have friends, I suggest you use them. Additionally, the move to Steam split the player base, so there’s a smaller pool of players to draw from if you need to play with randoms.
Though the campaign may not be as stellar as the previous two entries, the co-op is just as good as it’s always been - The Last Stand is still fantastic, and anyone looking for a good co-op experience on the PC owes it to themselves to play this.