Dawn of War 3 s’inspirera de Company of Heroes Online

Avec toutefois une dimension stratégique en plus. C’est ce qui ressort d’un récent entretien de Eurogamer avec Danny Bilson, un des grands patrons de THQ. Dans cet interview,  il est évoqué une « expérience digitale plus free to play », conservant la qualité et la profondeur des STR de Relic. La sortie du jeu serait envisagée entre 18 et 24 mois après l’extension Retribution pour Dawn of War 2, soit fin 2012 ou début 2013.

Le format de Dawn of War 3 (MMOSTR Free to play ou autre) dépendra beaucoup du succès de Company of Heroes Online, prévu pour cet hiver en Europe. Le développement de Dawn of War 3 n’en est qu’à ses débuts.

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Extrait concernant Dawn of War 3

Eurogamer: When are we going to see Dawn of War III?

Danny Bilson: Retribution’s going to ship in February, and then we start laying out Dawn of War III. You can probably expect it between 18 months and two years after that.

It may be a more digital free-to-play experience with all the depth and quality of a Relic RTS.

Company of Heroes Online is another thing we’re showing at gamescom, because we’re going to be bringing that to North America and Europe very soon in the fall.

We’re taking company of Heroes, and we’ve added all kinds of things to it. It’s now going to be launched as a free-to-play micro-transaction, where you don’t have to buy anything. It’s just time versus investment.

You can play the heck out of it and unlock and earn certain things. But at the same time, we’ll be selling little pieces. Little bits of the game to enhance your game online. Leaderboards, you can have an avatar and a screen that shows how you’re doing in the game.

We’ve invested years in bringing this to free-to-play, and a lot of money to make it a cool free-to-play. I haven’t seen everything in the world, but it has to be the biggest budget, biggest blockbuster free-to-play game that’s gone that way yet. It’s coming this fall, and I think winter in Europe.

Eurogamer: So Dawn of War III may be like Company of Heroes Online, then?

Danny Bilson: Could be. It all depends on how COHO does, and how it works and how people respond to it. If they do that would definitely drive us to… Now Dawn of War III, either way, is going to have a much larger strategic component to it, more of a global battle going on with little tactical things, sort of MMO-like.

I’m just giving you a lot of preview. We haven’t announced anything about it, and it’s still in its early formative stage, but I’m just talking to you about the brainstorming going on around it. I’m excited about it. I’m a big fan of that, obviously.