Dawn of War games and their expansions are my most played RTS strategy games ever. So i couldn't hide my excitement when Relic announced Dawn of War 3 earlier this year. Warhammer 40000 universe is a place where there is only war and in Dawn of War games there is only war. But this war is fun and over the top, with insane characters and all sorts of tech and eldrich magics all placed in the far future. Warhammer40k is a lore rich universe where you can loose yourself.
Dawn of War
First Dawn of War game was Company of Heroes hybrid where you could capture points, build a base and upgrade tech to produce massive armies and crush your opponent.
With expansions relic introduced so many different races that the game was very big and every faction was so different. Those factions or races were:
- Space Marines
- Eldar
- Orks
- Chaos Space Marines
- Imperial Guard
- Tau
- Necrons
- Sisters of Battle
- Dark Eldar
Dawn of War 2
Dawn of War 2 was also an amazing success but in this game Relic scrapped base building and everything was based on quick skirmishes around capture points and when game progressed you could buy more advanced units and throw them into the mix. Great tactical gameplay was something different from original Dawn of War.
Dawn of War 3
Back on the new game that is coming out in 2017. Dawn of War 3 is returning to the roots with base building and massive armies, but they will take some great things from Dawn of War 2 like hero units and make them bigger and stronger. Will that work, we shall see. However I think there are some bad signs that the game won't be diverse enough with only 3 basic playable races, Space Marines, Orks and Eldar. So nowhere near as many as first Dawn of War game.
Will they announce one more race I don't know, but considering the history of these games 4 races should be a minimum for game release.
As you can see on the early screenshots this game will be an eye candy. Everything explodes and is very colorful, however that is not what fans want from grim Warhammer40k universe. That universe is bloody and full of gore with big monsters that could destroy whole cities, any fan would know what I'm talking about.
Game is still early in production and things will probably change. We might be too used on the old games and eye needs to catch up. I hope that Dawn of War 3 will be a worthy successor of this amazing franchise.
Check this CGI trailer to see why Dawn of War games are so good and raising in popularity with every new release.
