Interview: Phillippe Boulle, Dawn of War II designer

Mike Bantick
Friday, 03 April 2009 08:07

Opinion and Analysis

Dawn of War II has been topping sales charts around the world, both fans of the original video game as well as Warhammer 40K table-top gamers lapping up the new challenge.  iTWire spoke to Phillippe Boulle, Senior Game Designer from Relic, Vancouver about the thinking that went into this blockbuster.

iTWire: Congratulations on Dawn of War II , you have taken a different approach to normal franchise sequels.  DOW II is actually far more nostalgic for Warhammer 40K fans than I expected.  It recreates the more RPG style battles of the original Rogue Trader game in contrast to the more modern version of larger scale engagements.  Was this a deliberate design decision?

Phillippe Boulle:  We set out to build on the original DAWN OF WAR's successes in making this type of game fun and engaging. Original DoW set itself apart by focussing on frontline combat and getting rid of the traditional "peons" of RTS games; DoW II took that several steps further and introduced strong persistence and customization elements. In that way, we did pick up from the original.

We knew we were moving away from pure RTS however, and we did take some inspiration from Rogue Trader and of 40K-themed small-scale games (Necromunda, Inquisitor). Like those games, we strived to make each squad unique and full of personality.

ITWIRE:  Still on design; giving players the freedom to drive their own campaign, even more so than the original, with linked planet systems, and the choice decide on a focus direction.  Yet the story arch is maintained with primary and optional missions under a timed deployment model.  What was the aim using this campaign model?

PB:  Jonny Ebbert (DoW2's Lead Designer) put it this way in several early design meetings: "RTS campaigns are always somebody else's story. This should be the player's story." In other words, we wanted the player to feel he was setting the course through the challenges of the game, not simply carrying out someone else's battle plan.

Of course, the campaign does still have a structure, but by having optional missions and by letting the player choose in which order he undertook the three major goals of the campaign, we tried to invest the player in the shape of the campaign, to have him (or her) look back at the end and see how the course of events reflects his actions.

The campaign structure was only one of our tools here. We also let the player name his Force Commander. And the wargear and squad levelling systems give the player lots of meaningful choices that shape his strike force.

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