Cyanide Reveals Dogs of War Online, First Screenshots Released

Cyanide has revealed the first screenshots today for their upcoming tabletop inspired strategy Dogs of War Online. For those unfamiliar with the developers, Cyanide is a team of ex-Ubisoft devs best known for developing the video game adaptation of the popular tabletop game Blood Bowl. Their game Dogs of War Online, is the team's first free-to-play endeavor and like Blood Bowl, it is inspired by another tabletop wargame called Confrontation (created by Rackham).

As you would expect, Dogs of War Online will play using turn-based hexagon-tile mechanics similar to tabletop wargames. Players will be able to create squads made up of units of their choosing in order to fight in battles against other players while moving across the game's "board" or map. These units can be customized by acquiring and equipping items or even adding new units to the group.

Interestingly, a player must also demonstrate leadership qualities in order to effectively manage his troops in battle. A player's leadership choices can have unexpected consequences such as a units desertion, tension between soldiers and even theft. To combat a soldiers tendency to spend it's free time ransacking a nearby village, players can send their units on mission between battles in order to increase a player's winnings. Perhaps this means some sort of AFK/Offline progression system whereby units left unattended can get into trouble. It certainly would add to the emphasis of players demonstrating leadership.

Although the game will feature 3 factions at launch, the game will have no definitive "good guy" faction. Players can choose to be the Ram, an army of undead minions; Lion, a band of noble-but-not-really knights who are better known for their greed and deceit; and Wolfen, who pull a Predator move and hunt every single stranger as prey (do they keep their skulls as trophies too?). The game is set to be released in Q2 of this year.

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