For many of us, our first taste of Warhammer came from the sublime strategy game, Warhamer 40K: Dawn of War. Or Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War II: Dawn of War harder.
Relic Entertainment hit the nail on the head with those two games, excellent strategy titles that gave players a true sense of scale when building a Space Marine dreadnought that would lumber into battle and hit Orcs with Stone Cold Stunners and flames.
If you’ve never ever played a Dawn of War game, it’s essentially every single sci-fi trope ever made going head to head in glorious strategic battle. Imagine killer robots that billions of years old, super-soldiers in Iron Man armour, human fodder and a looming lawsuit in the form of the Tyranids, all going at one another.
The sequel upped the ante with new factions (NECRONS FOR THE WIN YO!) and an even deeper strategic aspect, as well as more detailed RPG mechanics for your army commander. It was heavenly. Heavenly I say!
So even though there are two other Warhammer 40K real-time strategy games on the way, I have zero complaints about a third Dawn of War. And that’s what Sega may be doing, as the company registered a trademark for Dawn of War III. AGB has the link, right here.
Dawn of War developer Relic Entertainment have been busy with Sega’s other star-RTS franchise, Company of Heroes, since Dawn of War II wrapped up with the Retribution expansion back in 2011.
I reckon it’s about time to get off of the Normandy beaches and back down to whatever mudhole the Orcs have overrun. I’ve got a lot of love for the Dawn of War franchise, seeing as how it survived the fall of THQ and ended up in the hands of Sega.
And honestly, this is one franchise that Sega desperately needs right now, to have some presence on the PC platform at least. If you’re keen to try it out, you can usually pick up a Dawn of War game for cheap at any gaming shop.
Last Updated: July 6, 2015
Alien Emperor Trevor
July 6, 2015 at 13:04
Good. In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only war.
Lollies the Laughing Lollipop
July 6, 2015 at 13:05
PLayed a WarHammer game on the PSP that was Similiar to Xcom.. was enjoyable.. need more games like that..
Admiral Chief's Adventure
July 6, 2015 at 13:05
Dawn of Meh again? Sheesh
*grabs popcorn and sits back to watch*
Ottokie
July 6, 2015 at 13:15
http://img.ifcdn.com/images/8c17449980d6c438090d6e2751a07423f319c5eefb9196f6c691245b6fcb05b2_1.gif
Viking Of Science
July 6, 2015 at 14:28
http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/176/230/1206043666970.jpg.myspace.jpg
Pariah
July 6, 2015 at 13:24
If we can play a single player campaign that’s either the Tyranids or Eldar, I’m sold. DoW2’s multiplayer was rubbish. Which is in contrast to the lovely SP campaigns, which rocked.
Daniel Hallinan
July 6, 2015 at 13:29
Excited by this!
Though I know they *will* reset the faction count back down to four, I’m very curious as to which ones they pick. I’m hoping for some wild cards, like the Tyranids in Dawn of War 2 and the Vampire Counts in Total Warhammer.
Ideally, seeing as both the Necron and Dark Eldar have received *considerable* faction redesigns since they first features in Dawn of War, I’d love to seem them appear in this game. Necrons now actually have personality, so they can talk to and deride other factions without resorting to weird story loopholes like in Dark Crusade 😛 (Hell, there’s even justification for necrons to fight necrons now). Actually, I’ve got quite a good feeling for seeing Necrons 😀
I enjoyed both the previous games, and loved the multiplayer in DoW2 – though the story in the campaigns, particularly in Retribution, suffered *heavily*, though I suspect the issues at THQ may have contributed to the deadlines that resulted in the utter butchering of plot on that expansion.
Also, I wonder which Greater Daemon will inevitably make an appearance in this game / its expansions. Dawn of War 1 had the Bloodthirster, 2 had the Great Unclean One, so now it’s either the Keeper of Secrets or Lord of Change. Hoping for the latter perosnally, as I love Tzeentch 😀
Witcher Bob
July 6, 2015 at 13:34
I wouldn’t say the story in Retribution suffered. It was a good conclusion to the story with a few loose ends that could give rise to story plots. Plus the campaign story has become canon with the Blood Ravens being added to the Space Marine codex as a viable chapter.
Daniel Hallinan
July 6, 2015 at 14:42
The validity of the story was never really questioned (barring some very poor quality novelizations of the games, that is) – and, much to the consternation of DoW fans, the only presence the Blood Ravens have in the Space Marine codices are in small mentions within the backstory segments. They don’t have any rules / chapter tactics tied to them, as far as I know.
None of that is really part of my point, though – my issue is less with what the actual story is, but more about how much of that actually survived the transition from the writing desks to the final game product. A lot was cut, and the quality, quantity, and subtlety of the narrative suffered due to the need to set dev time aside to construct campaigns for every single faction. It also forced their hand in certain story decisions, such as each faction killing an important character in their respective tutorial missions, which always felt weirdly anti-climactic and forced.
That’s not to say I didn’t enjoy the campaigns (barring that feeling of disappointment at certain parts) – I actually feel the campaign gameplay in retribution is the one I had the most fun with, particularly when playing the Chaos path which was fantastic. Of course, the franchise has had narrative issues for a while, the very first game still has the strongest narrative of them all, followed by Winter Assault and Chaos Rising.
Witcher Bob
July 6, 2015 at 14:57
I see your point(s). I was focusing on DoW2 but I know some of the expansions/stand alones like Dark Crusade and possibly Soul Storm had very little in the way of storyline. They were more like just single player missions. So yeah, point very much taken 🙂
On a side note, there is a Blood Ravens chapter tactics but it was released separately and I haven’t seen it ever included in the rule book or codex. I’m not sure how much has been done with it since release but it was an official GW print and I also think it appeared in an issue of White Dwarf.
Witcher Bob
July 6, 2015 at 13:29
AAAHHHH YEAH! The Emperor (the real one not the false Xeno Heretic Trevor) wills it to be so.
And Darryn, the Warhammer universe spells ork with a “k” 🙂
Nikola
July 6, 2015 at 13:38
Maaan I would LOVE this!!! Played so much Dawn of War game had a whole box set for PC with all the expansions:) awesome game’s!
Viking Of Science
July 6, 2015 at 14:26
BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD! SKULLS FOR THE SKULL THRONE!
Rich
July 7, 2015 at 12:42
Oh come on, don’t bash sega too hard. They brought us the excellent Sonic All Star Racing: Transformed! No sarcasm. I have a crew of about 16 people wanting to play that game constantly. It is a bunch of fun. I didn’t even know Sega had DoW rights, but DoW 2 was great (the FPS sucked though). Hoping for DoW 3 (and hoping it doesn’t suck)