Steam News announces the release of Dawn of War II: Retribution – The Last Standalone, a standalone game based on the cooperative survival mode in Dawn of War II: Retribution (owners of the original game do not need this, as they already have it). Word is: "Dawn of War II: Retribution – The Last Standalone is a cooperative survival mode where you control a single hero and face off against waves of enemies with two other teammates. Choose from one of the six available heroes and gain experience points to level up and unlock new wargear and abilities." On a related note, IndustryGamers has comments from Relic on sales of Warhammer 40,000: Dawn Of War II – Retribution through Steam, crediting the "hype and activity" of being on Valve's online service for exceeding their digital pre-order forecast by 129 percent. Relic producer Jeff Lydell's comments indicate that the strategy expansion also benefited from cutting Games for Windows LIVE out of the equation:

“The content of the game wasn't dependent on the online service provider. However, one of our goals when making expansions to our games is to address problems in the original,” he added. “The combination of requiring both a Steam account and a Games for Windows Live account had been a source of frustration for many of our players, so we took the necessary steps to fix that. We also got to take full advantage of the Steamworks SDK features like cloud saving.”

“The new online matchmaking experience is definitely a step up in many players' eyes. The new skill rating system gives better granularity on ladder standings, and makes it easier to see the changes in rating after a match. The Steam community features for organizing friends lists are all frequently used, and there are many groups with active users, as well the in-game chat lobby is always active with players,” he noted. “There was a lot of concern the move away from our previous expansion strategy would fragment the community. Looking at the numbers, it's clear most active players have moved over to Retribution, and the total hasn't gone down.”