Gamespot took the time to talk with Brad Wardell of Stardock about the upcoming expansion to Galactic Civilizations II and what players can expect to see in Dark Avatar. According to Wardell, the campaign mode revolves around the splintering of the evil Drengin Empire into 2 factions. One wants to conquer the galaxy as usual, while the other wishes to exterminate all other life.
Wardell stated that while the campaign mode is relatively short and mainly serves to get players comfortable with the game, he reiterated that at least one race will be wiped out in the campaign and as a result will not be returning for future games in the series. He also touched on several new features that will be introduced including worlds that can only be settled by specific races as well as the addition of resource generating tiles, such as asteroid fields, near planets;
We wanted to give players some additional things to consider when conquering a star system or planet. Right now, it's all about how good the planet is. In Dark Avatar, we want players to also consider what resources might be near that planet. Asteroid fields will let players construct bases on them, which can provide resources to the closest colonized planet. Some asteroids will be special and hence be another thing that players will fight over. -Brad Wardell
Finally, Wardell also stated that due to the costs involved in getting a retail product onto shelves, Dark Avatar will only be available via digital distribution. Call me old-fashioned, but I'm just not a fan of downloaded content - I like to have something I paid for be a physical object I can hold - which is also one of my complaints about Xbox Live Arcade. Sure, you own it and can re-download it whenever you want, but what happens if the company goes out of business or stops supporting the product? Hopefully an option to burn the download to disc will be made available as well. You can check out the full Gamespot Q&A session on Galactic Civilizations II: Dark Avatar here.
