Do you see that Ork hero? That’s the hero Jordan Devore is not allowed to play with in the upcoming Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II: Retribution, because dibs have been called. But depending on how invested you are in the Dawn of War community, you could be playing with any of the six multiplayer races as early as January 31st in the upcoming beta!
The beta is meant to test the new Steamworks networking and matchmaking features and to help balance things that need balancing. After which people will complain on forums that “X has been nerfed” or “Y is still OP”, then be promptly ridiculed by those who disagree. It will feature all the new units for each race, including the Imperial Guard faction, as well as the new multiplayer maps that come with Retribution.
If you are a “key Dawn of War community member” or press, you can get into the beta when it goes live on January 31st. That means a lot of press will be brutally humiliated by people who are better at Dawn of War II than they are. If you pre-ordered Retribution on Steam, you can join the beta from February 1st onwards. And if you ever bought any Dawn of War game on Steam, or registered Dawn of War II on Steam, you will receive an automatic invite in Steam on February 8th. The beta is planned to run until midnight on February 24th.
Fun fact: Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II: Retribution shares the honor of being the longest Warhammer 40,000 game title with Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War: Winter Assault. If you count the space, that is. Warhammer.
