Relic Entertainment have announced Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War – Definitive Edition – an upgraded, 64-bit version of your 29th favourite strategy game of all time, which includes all of the original expansions and will be compatible with “over 20 years of lovingly crafted community mods”.
The developers assert that “this is the iconic Dawn of War as players remember it, but optimized for modern hardware.” Nonsense, Relic! In order for this to be Dawn Of War as I remember it, I would need to play it while subsisting entirely on cans of 20p Tesco tomato soup. Nowadays Tesco tomato soup costs 65p a can. It turns out that in the grim darkness of the far future, there is only rampant inflation. And 4K graphics. Here’s the announcement trailer.
The Definitive Edition features four Dawn of War campaigns, encompassing nine armies and over 200 maps. You can expect upscaled textures and image-based lighting, together with an optimised HUD layout for widescreen displays and an “improved” camera. “World lighting, unit reflections, and shadows have all been improved, and new unit gloss and emissive lighting will faithfully enhance the moment-to-moment action,” gushes the press release.
Back in February, a few months after Sega sold them to UK investment firm Emona Capital LLP, Relic unveiled plans for a fiendishly diversified mix of big RTS sequels, smaller experiments and spiritual revivals. Happy as I am that they’re still in the Spice Maureen business, this does feel like a quick cash-in while they work on something brand-new. If you don’t care for those Definitive technical flourishes, you can already find a Dawn Of War compendium on Steam in the shape of the Anniversary Edition, which also features all the old expansions and is currently 80% off till 29th May.
All this confirms Nic’s report from earlier this week that “something Dawn Of War shaped” would turf up at this year’s Warhammer Skulls event. Nic is our premier Games Workshop astropath and archivist. He knows his Great Knarlocs like I know yearly increases in the price of canned goods. Let us gather trustingly around his arcane relay in the hopes that he absently murmurs the words “Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate – Daemonhunters sequel”.
