If you’ve gotten used to the maps currently on Halo Wars, then expand your map list and check out Halo War’s new DLC. There are four new maps in all, which are unique and will require new strategies to conquer them in single or multiplayer.

Here is a list of the map names, along with a short description…

* Barrens: Difficult terrain channels units into killing zones. The side that controls the Forerunner artifacts will have the advantage (1v1 Map).
* Blood River: Secure base locations on nearby cliffs overlook this naturally red-tinged river. The soldiers that fought over its two narrow crossings gave the river its name, which has since taken on a greater meaning (1v1 Map).
* Glacial Ravine:A snow-topped mountain range forms a natural barrier that cuts this region in half. Control of the two energy walls at the narrow central pass often determines the outcome of the battle, though clever use of the Sentinel Factories may play a role as well (3v3 Map).
* Memorial Basin: The high ground in the middle offers good cover for infantry, while the generally open terrain transforms organized battle plans into bloodbaths (2v2 Map).

Along with the maps there are brand new achievements to try and unlock…

* Tour Coming Through: Hot drop 50 squads to your Covenant Leader in a single game on Memorial Basin (30 points)
* Never Leave a Man Behind: Finish a game with 5000 net resources contributed to your teammates on Barrens (15 points)
* Drain Cleaner: Kill 20 enemy squads with a continuous Covenant Leader Power on Memorial Basin (30 points)
* Killjoy: Disrupt 5 active Leader Powers in a single game on Blood River (25 points)

The Historic Battles DLC is now available and will set you back 800 Microsoft Points.

Have you ever wondered how game levels are created. If you’re a Halo Wars fan then you’re probably really curious to know how missions are created from beginning to finish. On the Halo Wars Developer blog some light is shed on just how a mission goes from brainstorming to making the final cut.

Here’s an excerpt and some pictures from the post…

The first thing we do when we start a new campaign is to do some research. Instead of hitting the history books like in our Age of Empires games, we grabbed anything we could from Halo and absorbed it. We read books, played through the games, and talked with Bungie to make sense of any questions that arose. I personally spent a few days doing nothing but playing the Halo campaigns in the office to refresh my memory and get some inspiration. This helped more than I even hoped… people would stop by my office to watch me play and learned some things they may have forgotten about the games – or to yell at me to turn it down!

The content designers got together and brainstormed. At this point the story was still in the works, so we threw out crazy ‘what-if-we-could-do-anything’ ideas. For example, I really wanted to do a mission where two Scarabs were destroying a city, and the player’s job was to stop them before a certain number of buildings were destroyed. That ended up on the cutting room floor with a bunch of other cool stuff, but the process gave us a lot of good gaming fodder - we ended up morphing that idea into the Super-Scarab in mission 07. So, once the story started becoming more concrete we found places to use those ideas.