I’ve been a huge fan of Warhammer 40,000 for most of my adult life. For me, Dawn of War was a huge triumph, accurately portraying the universe I loved while also providing robust RTS mechanics that were fun and innovative.

Sad then, that now three years after the launch of the original title, the third expansion pack Soulstorm has managed to suck all fun out of the game, leaving nothing but a dried-up husk of a franchise.

Yes, it adds two new factions. And while that may seem like value for money, bear in mind that firstly, this puts the total amount of factions at (a frankly ridiculous) nine. And secondly neither of these new races are new at all. In fact, they are the opposite of new. They are old.

The first of the apparently new races featured is the Dark Eldar. Kind of like the regular Eldar, only emo and half naked. Unfortunately, apart from having completely awesome sail barges of filth they are not different enough from regular Eldar to be worth bothering about. The art is great, and the voice work on them is also top notch, but it all feels annoyingly familiar. They do have an interesting resource mechanic of collecting souls from your fallen enemies, but this ranges from a time-consuming annoyance to a genuinely infuriating experience. The Dark Eldar are the epitome of redundancy, adding nothing at all to the game other than sexy slave girls and the colour purple. You’ve already been here. You’ve already seen this. You already threw out the t-shirt.

This is the sentiment shared by the other main draw of Soulstorm; the Sisters of Battle. While superficially they are essentially Space Marines with vaginas, they play much more like the Imperial Guard. That is to say again that they are not really adding anything to the game other than a new look for an old mechanic. Like the Dark Eldar, they have quirky units and a different style than the other races, but I stopped caring long before it drew me in. The only thing of interest here is their Faith mechanic, which apparently means they can unleash powerful attacks based on how much we believe in them (or something). Again, this feels so superficial and redundant that you may miss it completely.

As is tradition with Dawn of War expansions, each of the other races gets a new unit. In Soulstorm’s case, they all get aircraft, which all basically serve the same purpose; to attack enemy units from the air, miss, then die in a screaming fireball. Of course, fans of the series will welcome this dynamic, which opens up a lot of the more enclosed maps, but newcomers will see it purely as an off-map special ability rather than a cohesive and integrated gameplay mechanic.

Of course, the rest of the game is totally passable. The single player storyline is utterly forgettable, however the mission variety is pleasing and the campaign is plentifully long. While it roughly follows the set-up of Dark Crusade, providing you with a meta map of territories to attack at your leisure, it does get stale quickly and provides little to no replayability. But credit where due, there has been thought put into introducing the new races and sliding them right into the gameplay without too much hassle. This is actually probably a result of them not being new, but merely a glorified texture pack.

But at this point, most people are really here for the multiplayer, which thankfully is still damn great. There is not much to say, though, because Soulstorm simply allows you to play the multiplayer that has been in place since Dawn of War launched. Still fast-paced, still varied and still hyper competitive, and still incredibly fun.

But like Relic’s other recent offering, Opposing Fronts, Soulstorm is a standalone pack, meaning you do not have to own any of the previous games to play it and enjoy it. This is a baffling decision, seeing as the only people who should buy Soulstorm are die-hard fans of the series who will undoubtedly already own everything that is already released. You can’t blame them for giving the consumer choice, though. As an introduction to the franchise, Soulstorm is a good platform. The new (old) races, are well made, polished and, for the price of the expansion, enough content to keep fans happy.

If you thought Dawn of War was great, but could have been greater if only it had more boobs, then buy this game. Otherwise, avoid at all costs, because no amount of scantily clad women or ultra-violent sadistic madmen can save this franchise from being sucked dry of all innovation and fresh ideas. It is hard to recommend Soulstorm, because it adds nothing to the series. This is a last attempt at wringing dollars from an outdated title.

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