Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War: Soulstorm
Encyclopedia
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War: Soulstorm is the 3rd expansion
to the PC
-based RTS game
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War
series developed by Iron Lore Entertainment
. Like its predecessors, Soulstorm is based on Games Workshop
's popular 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 play, but you must have the prior games installed and valid cd-keys in order to play as anything but the two new races online.
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.
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.
, the game had an average score of 72% based on 11 reviews. On Metacritic
, the game had an average score of 71 out of 100, based on 15 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.
Expansion pack
An expansion pack, expansion set, or supplement is an addition to an existing role-playing game, tabletop game or video game. These add-ons usually add new game areas, weapons, objects, and/or an extended storyline to a complete and already released game...
to the PC
IBM PC compatible
IBM PC compatible computers are those generally similar to the original IBM PC, XT, and AT. Such computers used to be referred to as PC clones, or IBM clones since they almost exactly duplicated all the significant features of the PC architecture, facilitated by various manufacturers' ability to...
-based RTS game
Real-time strategy
Real-time strategy is a sub-genre of strategy video game which does not progress incrementally in turns. Brett Sperry is credited with coining the term to market Dune II....
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War is a military science fiction real-time strategy video game developed by Relic Entertainment based on Games Workshop's popular tabletop wargame Warhammer 40,000. It was released by THQ on September 20, 2004 in North America...
series developed by Iron Lore Entertainment
Iron Lore Entertainment
Iron Lore Entertainment was a computer game developer that was founded in October 2000 by Brian Sullivan and Paul Chieffo....
. Like its predecessors, Soulstorm is based on Games Workshop
Games Workshop
Games Workshop Group plc is a British game production and retailing company. Games Workshop has published the tabletop wargames Warhammer Fantasy Battle and Warhammer 40,000...
's popular tabletop wargame, Warhammer 40,000
Warhammer 40,000
Warhammer 40,000 is a tabletop miniature wargame produced by Games Workshop, set in a dystopian science fantasy universe. Warhammer 40,000 was created by Rick Priestley in 1987 as the futuristic companion to Warhammer Fantasy Battle, sharing many game mechanics...
, 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 play, but you 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.Units
Each race is given a new aerial unit which does not obey the normal rule of engagement in the Dawn of War series.- Chaos Space Marines gain the Hell Talon, though the White Dwarf issue stated it was a Hellblade
- EldarEldar (Warhammer 40,000)In the fictional universe of Warhammer 40,000, the Eldar are a race of elf-like humanoids who look into the future via psychic powers. They are one of the most ancient and advanced races in the universe's history, though younger than the Necrons, the C'tan, and the Old Ones...
gain the Nightwing - Imperial GuardImperial Guard (Warhammer 40,000)The Imperial Guard are a specific army or faction in the Warhammer 40,000 and Epic tabletop games and universe. The army itself is characterised by being capable of fielding a multitude of lightly armoured, average infantry in combination with some of the toughest and most powerful tanks in the game...
gain the Marauder Bomber - Necron Tomb Spyder's Attack Scarabs have been granted flight ability and Necron Lord receives the C'tan Deceiver entity.
- Orks gain the Fighta Bomba
- Space MarinesSpace Marines (Warhammer 40,000)In the fictional universe of Warhammer 40,000 setting created by Games Workshop, Space Marines are genetically modified "super human" soldiers created by the Emperor to conquer the galaxy and defend mankind. According to Games Workshop, there are over a thousand recorded chapters of Space Marines,...
gain the Land Speeder Tempest - TauTau (Warhammer 40,000)In the universe of Games Workshop's table-top wargame Warhammer 40,000, the Tau Empire is an alien race, inhabiting a small but dense region of space on the eastern edge of the Galaxy, roughly 300 light years in diameter...
gain the Barracuda - Dark Eldar gain the Raven
- Sisters of Battle gain the Lightning Attack Fighter
Campaign
The KauravaKaurava
The term Kaurava is a Sanskrit term, that means the descendants of Kuru, a legendary king who is the ancestor of many of the characters of the Mahābhārata.The term is used in the Mahābhārata with two meanings:...
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.
Canonical Ending
The fate of the Kaurava System depends on the actions taken by the various factions fighting over it. The dialogue in the Dawn of War II by Scout Sergeant Cyrus indicated that the Blood Ravens under Captain Indrick Boreale had died and suffered a terrible defeat in the Kaurava System, with all 5 of the Blood Raven companies under his command destroyed, essentially costing the Chapter half of its manpower in a single campaign. As a result, the Blood Ravens desperately needed to step up their recruiting process in sub-sector Aurelia, their only remaining recruiting ground. Relic has since indicated that the Imperial Guard were the canonical victors of the Soulstorm campaign.Multiplayer
Multiplayer remains the same as in previous titles, with players given the ability to either play via LANLocal area network
A local area network is a computer network that interconnects computers in a limited area such as a home, school, computer laboratory, or office building...
or on the Gamespy
GameSpy
GameSpy Industries, Inc., known simply as GameSpy, is a division of IGN Entertainment, which operates a network of game websites and provides online video game-related services and software. GameSpy dates back to the 1996 release of an internet Quake server search program named QSpy. The current...
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.
Demo
On January 13, 2008, Relic released a 1.12GB 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.Critical reception
The game received generally positive reviews from critics. As of March 19, 2008 on the review aggregator Game RankingsGame Rankings
GameRankings is a website that collects review scores from both offline and online sources to give an average rating. It indexes over 315,000 articles relating to more than 14,500 games.GameRankings is owned by CBS Interactive...
, the game had an average score of 72% based on 11 reviews. On Metacritic
Metacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
, the game had an average score of 71 out of 100, based on 15 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.