GameGrin Interviews Philippe Boulle, Game Director of Dawn of War III

(laughs) Yeah, we did! We spent a lot of time underwraps before we announced, so to finally be able to just talk about the game feels pretty good.

Absolutely. All our games feed into one another, and we share common technology with Company of Heroes 2. We took the Essence Engine, so we have everything built on all of their strengths. I would say in terms of high level inspirations, though, the original Dawn of War is obviously the first and foremost, but Company of Heroes 2, there is a lot of... there’s so much learning that happened in that project, in particular, that we benefited from that.

Yeah, turtling has always been... it’s never really been part of the DNA for Relic games. Starting with the original Dawn of War and through Company of Heroes, resources are gained by going out into the field. Even as far back as Homeworld, you did want to build out a fleet, but you were out exploring more quickly than in other games. That’s not to say that sort of defensive instinct of building up your forces doesn't have its place in our game, but it is a sort of secondary avenue; you're always gonna have to go out and meet the opponent on the field.

(laughs) Ah, yeah, yeah. I mean, APM’s (actions per minute), and how fast you can click, and your micro skills are always gonna be important, and there are moments in Dawn of War III where they're very important. Like you’re having fights with elites and getting off the abilities at the right time; Orks in particular benefit from a lot of micro. But it’s not the only avenue to victory. There’s certainly building up economy, and more broader strategic moves are just as important. You’re not going to lose because your APM is only a mere 80 or whatever. (laughs) But there’s definitely depth to reward people there.

Macro was always important to us, but not at the scale of a Total War. Total War really benefits from having that whole overmap area -- that is so spectacular, so fantastic; you know, something we would love to explore, but... one challenge at a time. (laughs) And then the actual battles of the armies are a much slower paced affair, I would say, and about moving giant formations.

We definitely wanted a more nimble game, a more faster game, so that direction didn't appeal to us. But there are lessons to be learned in terms of how they handled very large armies, because we definitely have big armies, but not, you know, not quite to their scale.

Yes, absolutely. We definitely wanted to go back to bigger armies, and then deliver even bigger than we done before.

Definitely line units can start feeling fragile if they're up against a lot of firepower; the elites are definitely beefier. The Space Marines in particular have always posed a bit of a challenge, and you actually see that in the tabletop game, too, right, like (gesticulates wildly) “*the lore* is you drop one Space Marine on a planet and he can beat everyone!” (laughs) And on the tabletop, you have a squad of Space Marines, and you have the squad of Orks of equivalent points is bigger, but, you know...

(laughs) Yeah, there is a balance at play there. So we have some of those same considerations. We also wanted to manifest some of the Space Marine excellence in some of their comeback and fighting mechanics, so an individual squad of Tac(tical) Marines is tough, but not that tough. But what makes them a threat is that you have to take into account there might be a second squad that drops in in a drop pod any second, that a standard is gonna come in and buff all of them, that their heroes have different tools to turn the tide, as well. So that's where we wanted to capture that fantasy of the ultimate warrior.

(laughs) Yeah.

Yeah, we're always... balance in a strategy game is always a living thing; we're always going to continue there. I think we have the balance in a decent place, now. We basically have it, I think, as good as we can get until we get it out to a larger population, right? So now you guys, you know, press is playing it. We're gonna have betas that will inform further balance, and then obviously, when the game goes live, there's gonna be continued balance. So maybe Tac Marines will get beefier, maybe not. We'll see.
We wanted to put them as the base unit, as the HQ unit, rather than scouts, which we wanted to give a more specialised, recon role to -- scouting role to, what a surprise (laughs) But you know, that does have balance considerations, so...

That's what we've always done with Dawn of War, and I don't see a reason to change that. I think we'll do big content drops, that’s right.

(laughs) Yeah.

We are still working out DLC, I would say. Our desire is to not put any barriers for players to play the whole game, right? So, there's some pacing mechanics, where you earn skulls by playing the game, and you use those to unlock further elites, or you play through the campaign and you unlock some stuff. But there's no "I pay to get a new elite" (laughs) We're exploring some cosmetics as potential paid DLC, but we'll see how the market reacts to that stuff.

Well... the army I paint and build is the Blood Ravens army, so I guess I'm a Space Marines guy (laughs) I will say, when I first, *first* played 40K, way, way back in the day, I built Eldar, so... they have a place in my heart.

But if I have to choose, it's gotta be Space Marines.

(laughs) Oh, there you go! (laughs)