After seeing some gameplay, I am quite excited for this game. They have brought back base building and large armies, making the game feel much more like the first game and its expansions.

Here is twenty minutes of gameplay, sorry if you find the commentary annoying:



The section in the video that I find interesting is the last third or so. We can see that they have indeed brought back large armies, with the end of this mission have a total unit cap of around 200.

I must say, while I am excited by the prospect of a return to the gameplay of the first DoW, I am not too keen in their new art style. It is too colorful and I find the intensity of the laser fire and all of the glowing stuff to be distracting. When the dreadnought engages in melee combat, there is a weird visual effect that occurs, which strikes me as cartoon-y and contrary to the style and atmosphere of 40k. When a dreadnought crushes an opponent with its hands, it shouldn't have a strange energy effect marking its attacks; it should be blunt, brutal. Gabriel Angelos' melee animations are too... "acrobatic", or elaborate. They remind me of the over-choreographed dance routines of the Star Wars prequel trilogy. In general this new art style reminds me of one of my least favorite genres; MOBA's. Hopefully the cartoon-y swishy-energy effects that marks units' attacks will be removable through mods.

Unfortunately, the only factions in the base game will be the Spess Maureens, space elves, and Orks. While I am disappointed by the lack of Chaos, the Imperial Guard, Necrons, or other factions, I am still looking forward to the release of the game. It's not surprising that we don't have some of the factions, as all of the DoW games have added more factions later through hefty expansions. However, previous titles have launched with four factions, whereas III has, well, III.

Still, I am quite excited for the game.

MEHTAL BAWKSESSS?!?!?!?! TEH KOWARHRD!!! TEH FEWLS!!!!