Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II - Chaos Rising

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II - Chaos Rising is the first add-on to Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II and continues right were the main game left off. The Blood Ravens managed to save sub-sector Aurelia from being overrun by the Zerg-like Tyranids and held the Eldar and Orcs at bay. But in the Warhammer-universe, there's no time for peace. While the Blood Ravens fought for the survival of the sector, something changed.

Ten centuries ago the so-called Storm of Sorrow, a warp-anomaly, created a rift in the space-time-continuum affecting all surrounding planets - including the planet Aurelia. The planet was never the most habitable, being so far away from the sun. But the Storm of Sorrow threw it so far off course, that it froze solid in a matter of days and only 100.000 of its inhabitants managed to flee. After that, the planet was forever lost in the warp-stroms and -anomalies and quickly forgotten. Now the storms are gone and the planet reappears - and with it a new enemy emerges from the clouds: the Chaos Marines.

In short, the Chaos Marines are a darker version of the Space Marines featuring mostly the same types of units. As opposed to the Space Marines though, they hire Demons to fight on their side - although the Demons don't really care whom they kill, raging havoc between both parties on the battlefield. While the new single player campaign has the player, and thanks to the returning coop-feature, one of his friends fighting against the Chaos Marines and the other races, they become a playable faction in multiplayer.

The multiplayer-mode also sees the addition of a new free-for-all-game-mode, seven new maps, several new units for each of the playable races and two new heroes (a Tyranid and a Chaos Sorcerer) for the game-mode "The Last Stand" which was patched into the main game and has the player and two of his friends fighting wave after wave of AI-controlled enemies. By doing so the player earns experience points, levels up and unlocks additional wargear to outfit his character to make him even stronger.

The single player on the other hand allows the player either to import his troops from the main game or create a new level 18 Force Commander. The squad-level-cap has been increased from 20 to 30 and the skill-trees have been enlarged to accompany that change. Also powerful new weapons, armor and accessories are waiting to be found and equipped. Completely new is the corruption-rating which increases either by equipping special corrupting items or completing missions a certain way e.g. by not destroying the enemy base. Each squad has its own corruption-rating and only squads active during a mission will get corrupted. Once four corruption points have been earned, a new trait is unlocked. Of course there are also items and mission goals that reduce the corruption. Allowing the corruption to spread, will influence heavily how the story plays out, since the Blood Ravens more and more turn over to the Dark Side - or in this case the Forces of Chaos.

The last main addition to the game is Jonah Orion, a Scriptor that will join the ranks of the Blood Ravens. He has no squad-mates but uses powerful psionic spells and uses books and relics to further increase his power.