Well, this is a blast from the past. Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War was one of those games that always came up in LAN parties, back in the day. It’s a true classic of an RTS, and we’d spend hours doing skirmishes on a team, fighting against AI on the hardest difficulty we could get away with. I was something of an exception in the group though. I never got into the 40k lore, finding it a bit too edgy for me. Lots of big, shouty men dying big, shouty deaths. The actual 40k game never did the trick either. Every time dice bags and those big red ruler-like things came out, I’d just whip out my laptop and play something else.
Dawn of War, though? I was always up for that. It hit the same notes as the Command & Conquer games, where you had to build up a base and keep up enough pressure to prevent the enemy from just steamrolling over you. This ‘Definitive Edition’, as presumptuous a title as that is, packages together all of the expansions, makes it all run smooth on modern systems and gives it a coat of paint. The result is a lovely wave of nostalgia, even if a few quirks of the past are preserved wholesale.
For The Emperor!
If you never played the original Dawn of War, then I’ll give you the basic rundown. Once you’ve picked your race from the list, you’re plonked on to a start point with just your HQ and a builder unit. You need to build up your base and crank out enough units to either capture enough of the map or destroy your enemies. Territory control is a huge aspect of Dawn of War as the main resource (for Space Marines at least) is requisition. This is gained by capturing and holding strategic points across the map, so the early game forms around pocket-sized conflicts over these points.
On top of that, there’s a pleasing modularity to Dawn of War‘s combat. There’s a tight infantry cap of 20 units (with different squads needing different numbers). That means you need to ring out as much firepower as you can from the units you’ve got. That’s either through good tactics (which is needed for the squishier races, like the Tau), or from upgrading your squads with commanders and heavy weapons. You’ll frequently see squads sticking around from the beginning to the end, as they grow and improve. I like that. It gives the troops a bit more life.
There are limitations to that, though. For one, you can reinforce squads every time a member dies. Pitched battles become a constant box-checking exercise as you cycle through your squads, recruiting new members. It’s most notable with the Space Marines, which hurts the campaign somewhat. Dawn of War‘s main campaign follows the Blood Ravens chapter as they fight against Orks, Eldar and, finally, Chaos Marines. The story is fairly humdrum, with no real interesting twists on the subject matter. It’s also bizarrely easy for an RTS campaign, which seems to betray both a slight Space Marine favouritism and a case of dodgy AI, which we’ll get into. Either way, what a competent reviewer would do at this point is check out the multiplayer.
WAAAAAGHH!!
So anyway, I moved on to Skirmish matches. Dawn of War – Definitive Edition packages together all of the expansions, so there’s a big range of races to choose from. Even slightly rarer ones, like the Sisters of Battle, are here. Each race feels decently varied too. I tried the Orks first, who clicked when I realised they were basically aggressive turtles. Tau were harder to get into. Too squishy. Necrons felt just right, being a race that relied completely on power, rather than requisition. Super tough, super slow. All the races feel immediately visually distinct as well, which is helpful when knowing what you’re up against.
The ‘Definitive Edition’ brings in a coat of paint too. The overall designs are the same but the lighting has been tweaked and the textures upscaled. Characters in cutscenes are still a bit potato-faced but the overall battles look great. Pitched battles between different squads feel very exciting, when you’ve got rockets pinging everywhere and tanks throwing out artillery. The wonderful feeling of breaking through an enemy line is definitely improved by being able to tell what’s going on at a glance.
That said, there are some things that even the Definitive Edition can’t sort out. Pathfinding is a little odd, for instance. Space Marine Dreadnoughts are constantly getting stuck on the terrain. Troops will often go miles out of their way to reach somewhere. The AI isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, either. They’ll frequently not bother to take strategic points and have a tendency to barely guard their bases. I did a 4-player free-for-all against all hard AIs and took them to the cleaners in just thirty minutes. I suspect that the multiplayer is where you’ll get your money’s worth.
Dawn of War – Faithful Nostalgia
Even so, Dawn of War remains fun. It does enough to fiddle with the base-building RTS formula to still remain fresh. Rather than the turtling that was oh-so-tempting in something like Total Annihilation, or building tank swarms in the Command & Conquer games, Dawn of War‘s tight caps force you to think strategically. If you fill the cap with basic infantry, you’ll get mulched by tanks. Even then, each unit has a ‘morale’ level that affects their efficiency, so if you don’t pick the right blend of troops and upgrades, you’ll get broken.
It’s a clever game, and the constant need for territory control fits in neatly with the ‘eternal war’ theme of the 40K universe. If you don’t already own Dawn of War, then this is a good place to begin. If you do, then it’s harder. The definitive edition may light a fire under the multiplayer servers for a while, which is nice. But I’m not seeing much here that’ll encourage you to crack open your wallet if you’re still playing the original. As for me, it was a nice trip down memory lane. A bittersweet trip, though, as the sequel followed Company of Heroes’ lead and drove a stake to the heart of base building RTS’s.
Not that I’m bitter.
(Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War – Definitive Edition‘s Steam Page)
