Rather than the turtle style that the original, and its multiple add-on packs, encourages, Dawn Of War II focuses on managing up to 4 squads of specialist Blood Raven Space Marines. Each squad has a hero unit who can be incapacitated, but revived. As the game progresses each hero unit gains levels and abilities, as well as new armour, equipment, and accessories. It’s a refreshing change from having to upgrade tech levels for each new mission in the game.

I have yet to try multiplayer but have heard mixed opinions so far. Hopefully by the time I get around to finishing off the campaign (and maybe even again with the co-op option), there’ll be enough patches out to provide a decent balance.

Despite having less-than-stellar combat controls, the parkour-esque free-running around these incredible looking environments has sapped away several hours of my time. Some criticism has been placed on the Elika-save mechanism, where you effectively cannot die. However, it’s effectively a checkpoint mechanism that saves on load times and frustration. I find it works.

The only details I can find on one of the artists involves a mysterious Patrick, who can been seen demonstrating his talents in three speed drawings of the main characters. Here’s hoping to a sequel that sticks to the same style, but improves on the combat.