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Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War is one of the GOATs, and in many ways represents one of the last hurrahs for the traditional base-building RTS. See, in the early ’00s, the once glorious RTS genre was starting to show signs of wear and tear as it tried to adapt to a changing videogame landscape.
The shift away from the 2D RTS romps typified by the likes of C&C, Warcraft and Age of Empires was a rough one, and the era became littered with failed attempts to make a 3D hit. Dawn of War developer Relic, though, had everything under control.
Five years before Dawn of War, Relic had already stunned us with one of the few truly 3D RTS games: Homeworld. It was a revolutionary space strategy game where you had ships that could enjoy full 3D movement, paired with an exceptional story and stellar soundtrack.
In comparison, Dawn of War was a simpler affair—a more traditional RTS. But it still boasted plenty of novel touches: 3D terrain and units, cover mechanics, squad-based combat, and so much Warhammer 40k brutality. And more importantly, it was simply great. Kinetic, violent, smart, and full of orks waiting to be slaughtered by the truckload.
Dawn of War spawned two sequels, one of which is still highly regarded (albeit very different), but the original remains one of Relic’s greatest games, up there with Homeworld and Company of Heroes. And now, praise the Emperor, it’s time for a comeback in the shape of an HD remaster.
“Relic has gone through a bit of a rigmarole over the last few years,” says design director Philippe Boulle. “We came out from under the Sega umbrella, and we were sort of reconnecting with Games Workshop, and we sort of effectively at the same time said, ‘Hey, you know what would be cool?’ Because the original Dawn of War really stands up as a classic, both of RTS and as a Warhammer game.”
There’s also the fact that 40k is as massive as it’s ever been, and Dawn of War is still held up as one of the best videogame adaptations. It’s got a lot of fans, it’s still in our best strategy games list, and after the reception to Dawn of War 3 put the series in the freezer, there’s not really an alternative. People still hunger for their Dawn of War.
“But if you go back and try and play it,” says Boulle, “the gameplay holds up really well, but there’s four different executables, and the first two only play in 4:3, and the other two play in widescreen, but sort of by stretching 4:3.
“And there’s a few hoops you have to jump through. You’re agreeing to Gamespy terms, and there’s a bunch of weirdness there in order to actually play it on modern hardware. And so we thought, yeah, this is the time when we can bring it onto modern hardware, make it easier for people to play while still maintaining these 20 years of mods and really that classic experience.”
Boulle’s mention of “that classic experience” is really important. The line between remaster and remake are increasingly blurry, but Dawn of War: Definitive Edition is going to be a light touch. Relic is getting it up and running on modern hardware, supporting modern widescreen monitors, and cutting out some faff. There are extra touches here and there, but the goal has been to keep it as similar as possible to the original.
“We don’t want to fix something that isn’t broken,” Boulle adds. “The fundamental game still works. That’s what we want to deliver.”
Here’s what is changing:
- Everything has been unified under one executable—the base game, the expansions, the multiplayer.
- It’s playable in 4K, and all the textures have been increased.
- There’s new lighting and reflections, so the water will actually look like water at last.
- The camera has been pulled back a little bit, and the draw distance has been increased.
- It’s now 64bit, which will make it easier for modders to work on more ambitious projects.
- Minor bugs that have gone unaddressed for 20 years have been fixed.
So this is still the same game as it was 20 years ago, but it’ll work better on your modern PC and look a wee bit nicer to boot. One of the reasons for this light touch was Relic’s determination to preserve mods.
“That was one of our very first goals: to make sure mods for the original game still worked with the Definitive Edition,” says Boulle. “There’ll be one or two things that people installing mods will need to do a little differently, mostly just instead of installing in this directory, installing that directory, but we’ll sort of have materials to walk people through that.
“We’re testing with the major mods, we’re interfacing with mod makers, and we really want, on day one, for you to load all these different mods onto your machine and actually make it a little smoother to choose the mods that are playing on your machine.”
Obviously 40k itself has dramatically changed over the last 20 years. We’re now in 10th Edition, and we’ve got things like giant Primaris space marines, and lots of the factions have different names. The Imperial Guard is now the Astra Militarum. The Eldar are now the Aeldari. But Dawn of War is a “snapshot” of Warhammer 40k at a specific time. It’s 4th Edition. And that’s also been preserved.
As much as I’m sure I’d dig a reimagined Dawn of War, the classic game is just so damn good that I ain’t complaining. If I can play one of my favourite RTS games in 4K with updated textures and no faffing around, I’m absolutely in.
Dawn of War: Definitive Edition is due out this year. And if this trip down memory lane has given you a craving to read more about the genre’s past, I’ve got you covered.
Read the full article here
