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Dawn of War 3 splits time between all races, allowing for “interesting narrative things”

Dawn of War 3 single-player campaign

We’re at Gamescom doing Gamescom stuff, so we spoke to the developers of Dawn of War 3 about its single-player campaign, as well as digging into what makes the Eldars tick. You can see the full interview in the video above.

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One big change that’s coming to Dawn of War 3 is in how it treats the three main races. Where previous games in the series only did the races outside of the Space Marines justice through expansions, Relic want to get it right from the start this time.

“Our campaign alternates points of view – you’ll play mission one as Space Marines, mission 2 as Orcs, mission three as Eldar and then back to Space Marines,” lead designer Philippe Boulle tells us at Gamescom.

“That allows us to do some interesting narrative things where the player knows more than the protagonists and you’re sort of setting up the next mission with each mission. But it also means that by the time you’ve finished the campaign you’ve played as all the races equally, you’ve learned how they play, you’re better set up for multiplayer and you’re not in that situation where it’s like ‘well it’s sort of all about Space Marines and the other guys are just the punching bags’.”

Speaking of punching bags. The Eldars aren’t exactly known for being the strongest race, but the scales are tipping towards them in Dawn of War 3, and they’re beginning to sound like one of the most interesting races to play as.

“The Eldar are not at all pushovers,” explains Boulle. “They do typically have less health than Space Marines, but they are much faster and they can be very efficient in their roles. One of the big mechanics with them is they have what we call Battle Focus, which is sort of a warrior trance they go into. What it translates to in gameplay is a regenerative shield of health.

“So, unlike Space Marines, where as the squad takes damage their firepower will go down, the Eldar can take a bunch of damage without their firepower going down. Now if you get through that shield, they don’t have much actual health behind it, so you can start cutting them apart pretty quickly. It makes them challenging to fight, as a Space Marine, and it makes them really interesting to play – you get to really use hit and run tactics.”

Each faction will be distinct here. While they will share some things in common, like each having a melee and ranged specialist, for example, each will also have its own tools, like the Space Marine’s drop pods.

Which class will you be rocking in multiplayer?