I had the chance to attend a presentation of Dawn of War III, where I saw a good 15 minutes of a part of the campaign. This was with the Space Marines faction, and we a few details on base building, some on map info and how they work, but the majority was talking about the heroes. Soon you all will be able to see exactly what I did in a little over a week on June
The demo focused heavily on the hero units, of which you have your normal elite heroes and then your super elites. This is where you will see most of the Dawn of War II influence come in, as many abilities were very familiar from there, like leaping and then smashing an area, knocking enemies back. Some of them are single, large heroes, others will be more tactical in that they are a squad of elite units. Individually they are weaker than other elite units, but together they can certainly do a ton of damage to an enemy.
The most impressive, and genuinely massive, are the super elite heroes. We saw one in Solaria, who was in this massive suit that was equipped with huge machine guns for arms, which also had some flamethrowers attached for good measure. She had a devastating AoE ability, where she slowly sprayed her machine guns in big arcs that absolutely shredded the normal units. She also had an ability to launch missiles from her back, where you choose where they will land and destroy whatever is there more or less.
It seems the hero units will be what can easily turn the tide of battle in Dawn of War III. How they work with the army and base building is that, while the heroes can do a lot alone, they certainly have limits. Not only that, they definitely have their own type of counters that will kill them quickly if you do not prepare properly. So, they very much need the support of an army, or a good selection of units, to complement their play.
Some of what I saw can be seen in the trailer you can find here, including the extremely deadly player ability, which calls down a massive laser that absolutely destroys anything in its path.
I also had the opportunity to talk to Brent Disbrow, Game Lead, about Dawn of War III to get some more details about how Dawn of War I and II influenced III, some more specifics on how hero units will work, and about several other mechanics. Check out the video below!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Ar4JsniEwo Be sure to check out our E3 2016 Coverage Hub for everything E3!
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