Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War is a legendary PC RTS game. We already explained why you should play it in a previous article – and guess what? The game has received a remaster since then. I am a big fan of remakes and remasters and thankfully this is one of the better ones. How did the developers at Relic do this and what can we learn from them?
Knowing when to leave things as they are
The brief and modestly named Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Definitive Edition is a refreshing game in the current climate. Modern RTS games are struggling for attention but the Dawn of War brand, despite its blunder with Dawn of War 3, remains strong. Very strong. And Relic realized that the game is more than good enough to stand on its own two feet despite its age.
And due to this – they changed very little about the single player of these games. Oh, sure, they fixed some bugs here and there but this is the same pristine 2004-2007 campaign experience! And it serves as a great time capsule to showcase the differences between all 4 games!
You see, Dawn of War is not really the same as Winter Assault. And Winter Assault and Dark Crusade are different. Soulstorm is its own beast as well – and the good thing is this is kept for the campaigns! Thus, any fan entering the series will get to experience all 4 eras of Dawn of War’s balance and game design!
To note as well – sometimes remasters launch with less content than their base games. This is not the case here – all of the campaigns from the original game and its expansions are present as are all the multiplayer or skirmish maps.
A well-made Remaster!
The technical aspects were touched and improved on dramatically for this edition of the game. First off, all of the campaigns and all game modes now support a lot more of the modern resolutions and refresh rates – a massive difference in itself.
On the performance and stability front, a move to a 64-bit engine as well as carrying out certain lower-level engine optimizations paid off. Not so much for the campaign or multiplayer to be frank – it was already alright before, but this helps modders dramatically especially over the long term. Solid stuff.
It looks like the tabletop game!
As for graphics – we have higher levels of detail on in-game objects, new shader effects on metals and armours, a combination of algorithmically upscaled and hand-drawn textures and effects. No single thing is massively improved upon, but if you were to put the original side by side with the new edition – these small- to medium-sized differences will pile up. It does look great in action!
Other changes are tweaks to shadow rendering for both performance and visuals, lighting tweaks, and some art design improvements to some rougher maps from before. Ones that were just launched a bit too soon (both by Relic and Iron Lore) – the art team got to finish them the second time around.
Lastly there are some much needed gameplay tweaks too. The AI got some improvements so it’s a better opponent, though do not expect miracles here. The big kahuna is the improved pathfinding. This was Dawn of War’s weakest single aspect and the improvements are absolutely more than welcome. Now, it is still no Starcraft 2 here so moderate your expectations a bit, but it did help a lot. A newer camera that can zoom out further is also standard now.
It is still stable but this does look silly… carnage!
All in all, the game plays a bit better, looks better, and even runs better. Oh, and we have achievements now too! A solid package overall.
The Multiplayer and modding communities were revived!
As mentioned in our previous article, the modding scene for the game was alive and well and many people really did enjoy the multiplayer (both with and without mods). But when the Definitive Edition launched – everything got its third wind, so to speak.
The modders are working with more vigor now that they know the 64-bit engine will not crash with their enhancements. The new release got so many new and old players back into the fray that the multiplayer is once again prospering.
In fact, we are finally getting balance changes again! The meta is adapting, changing. Sisters of Battle had their bugs fixed and got some buffs, Imperial Guard saw changes, Eldar were nerfed and many more changes. Now, I do not agree with all of these changes and rebalances, but something is being done again and the game is changing. I am a very poor player of online RTS games, so I do not want to oversell my analysis, but I think we are in a slightly better situation right now than we were during the old days of Soulstorm. And what is even better – the developers are listening and monitoring and community feedback is taken into account. Things will keep changing, hopefully for the better!
What could still be done?
Dawn of War Definitive Edition is a good remaster but there are some places where it could improve even more.
On the technical side, it is using a DirectX 9 renderer still. Yes, some work was done under the hood to make it faster and prettier and work well on modern systems, but I do wish we got an update to DirectX11 at the least. It is still old by our modern standards, but it would be a step up from the DX9 renderer and it is actually faster/easier to multi-thread. Nothing like DirectX12 or Vulkan, but still a solid step over the original.
Working on multi-threading would be great too. Definitive Edition has some under the hood improvements that make it faster than all previous versions, but if we got actual multi-threading that would be amazing. Even using 3 threads like some 2008/2009 game did would already be a massive improvement for the game. And it would help modders a lot too – legendary mods such as Ultimate Apocalypse and Unification run better with the new engine. But a multi-core version would help massively!
Do not fix this bug for the campaign – it is funny!
On the campaign side there are still some remaining bugs that in my opinion ought to be fixed. Some weird oddities such as certain units dealing wacky damage or Honor Guards in Soulstorm or Dark Crusade having bugged statistics. This should be addressed once and for all.
I also believe a couple of features from mods should be added to the game proper. For example, being able to select all or at least most of a faction’s units within the Army Painter. I don’t understand why this is not standard at this point.
Why only 2 units : ( ?
One feature I would love to try out would be more custom match options. I want to see what it’s like fighting the computer or another player with the DOW 1 or Winter Assault rules. I want to see a battle between overpowered Imperial Guard and overpowered Dark Crusade Necrons. And being able to select rules such as “No vehicles” or “up to Tier 1/2/3 only” would be fun too. Hell – the ability to create custom match settings where one player or AI has insane resources but different maximum tiers to the others would be cool to see. Would it be balanced? No. Would it be fun? Yes.
Lastly – an update to modding tools and maybe source code access… unlikely but a man can dream. That would seal the deal fully – making this one of the best RTS releases of all time!
Looking into the future
I am a big fan of Dawn of War 1 and will be looking forward to trying out the upcoming Dawn of War 4. But a small part of me hopes that we get a remaster for Dawn of War 2 in the meantime.
Drip is all that matters!
If anything, that game, different as it is to DOW 1, deserves it even more. It’s jankier to set up in comparison. A nice Definitive Edition like this would smooth things over very well.
Otherwise, this is a very solid remaster and proof that you do not need to do much to get love and adoration from gamers. Stick to the basics, respect the original, do not cut down on content and make sure it is absolutely worthy of its title – be it Enhanced Edition or Definitive Edition. There must be no ifs or buts – it must deliver.
In the meantime… all eyes on Relic’s next remaster – Company of Heroes 1: Definitive Edition!
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