New Dawn of War III details emerge

By Wesley Yin-Poole Published 12 July, 2011

Expand and build your own custom army.

Upcoming real-time strategy game Dawn of War III will allow gamers to build their own custom armies, developer Relic has revealed.

It will also simulate the idea of a "war that rages eternal," Relic marketing manager James McDermott told Eurogamer.

"Looking at what we had real success with with Dawn of War II – Retribution, with the DLC, and with customisation and building their armies and collecting being a big part of what 40k fans really love, we want to make that a big part of DOW3," he said.

"There's going to be lots of opportunities to expand and build your own custom mega army. That's definitely an area we want to invest in. We see a good opportunity."

Last year Eurogamer broke the news that Relic was in the brainstorming stage of Dawn of War III.

THQ core games boss Danny Bilson suggested the Warhammer 40K RTS would launch between 18 months and two years after Dawn of War II - Retribution, pegging DOW3 for an August 2012 to February 2013 release window.

He also said the game "is going to have a much larger strategic component to it, more of a global battle going on with little tactical things, sort of MMO-like".

Now more gameplay details have trickled out ahead of what THQ has teased will be an announcement at German show Gamescom next month.

With Dawn of War II, Relic dropped base building – although it did feature in a reduced way in the game's multiplayer.

"We brought some base building back with Retribution," McDermott continued. "With DOW3, because it's going to be a new version, we're looking at the game as a whole, and we're really upping the intensity.

"With the 40k universe, the tagline is: there is only war. We want to give you that greater sense of the war. The battle. The war that rages eternal, and make that feel like that's really imposing and all around you, and you have your own personal, custom army in there.

"Your army and my army should feel very different. That's where we would like to get to.

"We're trying to leverage even more so on the Games Workshop tabletop game, and then combine that with the game mechanics people have said, 'If you were to make a DOW3 we would like this kind of balance of things,' and what we think would be good for strategy games as a whole.

"We're looking at all that stuff really carefully. And I'm sure you've probably heard this as well about Relic – we have a big announcement at Gamescom."

Is it Dawn of War III? Or perhaps Company of Heroes 2, the sequel to Relic's excellent World War II RTS?

"There is something cool and I think people will be really pleased to hear about it."

Picture of Wesley.

About Wesley Yin-Poole

Wesley is Eurogamer's news editor. He likes news, interviews, and more news. He also likes Street Fighter more than anyone can get him to shut up about it.

Read more articles from Wesley by visiting the Wesley Yin-Poole archive page.

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Comments (24) Latest comment 4 months ago

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  • crsmithy #1 8 months ago

    Ohh, this does sound promising! While I did enjoy DoW2 I really missed the larger force sizes of the first one - a mid point between the two would be excellent.

  • peeps #2 8 months ago

    Sounds good. Would be excellent if they had evey unit for each race in the game so players have a good choice of which units they want for their army. Balancing will be hard though if you go into a battle where none of your units have any real impact on some units your enemy is using. Need to make sure that regardless of the unit combo it's down to how you use them that will determine whether or not you can win.

  • BuddyChrist #3 8 months ago

    I just wanted a pc version of actual Warhammer.... I used to like Final Liberation for that, despite it's flaws

  • Lin #4 8 months ago

    They should just make it "40k Total War." Fortunately it feels like they're moving it that way.

    40k is not about base building. It's not about dungeon crawling or starcraft style splat-the-rat hotkey racing either, which is the alternative we got in DOW2.

    It's about nurturing your own unique army, choosing the units you want to take before the battle, and then making use of them during it. 40k Total War, on randomly generated unique worlds would just be awesome.

  • legendmir #5 8 months ago

    OR IS IT HOMEWORLD 3!!!!!

    /knows that would be too good to be true.. sob

  • FladgeMangle #6 8 months ago

    Be nice if they upscale it a little bit to include some of the heavier units, just as the tabletop game did a while back.

    Can't remember what the rule expansion is called, saw it in White Dwarf. Lots of super heavy tanks and medium titans. Sweet.

  • Buran #7 8 months ago

    I bought Dawn Of War, Winter Assault, Dark Crusade, SoulStorm, and Dawn Of War II, Chaos Rising and Retribution.

    I spent over 600 hours in multiplayer in DoW I, and barely touched DoW II or their expansions: as rts, is vastly inferior compared against DoW I.

  • darkmorgado #8 8 months ago

    @Fladgemangle

    Do you mean Apocalypse?

  • darkmorgado #9 8 months ago

    Agree with the comments regarding making it Total War: Warhammer.

    Would love to see that and it would be a far more faithful interpretation of the license than any of the DOWs so far (DOW was awesome though).

  • FladgeMangle #10 8 months ago

    @ darkmorgado

    Yes! That's it. Reavers vs Stompers vs Revenants (and now Phantoms - good lord!) and probably taken out in the first turn by a concentrated Devastator barrage.

    http://ww w.forgeworld.co.uk/Warhammer-40... - Warning: It looks like CCP set the prices.

  • Khosrau #11 8 months ago

    Relic is probably the best RTS-developer right now. Really curious about what they are cooking up now.

    Homeworld 3, CoH 2, or DoW 3 - all awesome in my book.

  • jimr9999us #12 8 months ago

    Relic's DoW series has been so excellent from the very start...I can't wait to see what they come up with...these guys are passionate about both the ip and rts's and they know their mechanics.

    I really am excited about this one already.

  • the_dudefather #13 8 months ago

    Design document:

    MORE DAKKA
    MORE FIGHTIN

  • sweatyBallacks #14 8 months ago

    An idea would be that you could use a limited selection of 'mercenary' forces in your army like we see happen in the tabletop W40k game. An obvious example would be a Space Marine army with a couple mercenary Imperial units. This would add to the tactics and massive variety.

  • Dapper_Dan #15 8 months ago

    I REALLY hope they're working on Homeworld 3. HW 1 ranks as one of my all-time favourite games, up there with the likes of Deus Ex and the Half-Life series.

  • Gumersindo #16 7 months ago

    Love DOW 1 and all its expansions. But DOW 2 was meh for me. I prefer something that looks like a war and not like an ambush or a covert operation.

  • Rack #17 7 months ago

    I loved both honestly, DoW2 was a bit small scale for me but the reduction in base nannying was plenty worth it. Hopefully Relic can hit the sweet spot between the two.

  • anomagnus #18 7 months ago

    The thought of being able to create your own army, whether its your own dark eldar kabal, tyranid hive fleet, marine chpater, etc, sounds amazing. I love the idea of a massive steller perpertual battlefield, where we could influence the outcome. Fighting for a sector, like the big GW campaign for the 13th black crusade? Online?! In a game? SOLD!

  • Murton #19 7 months ago

    "Balancing will be hard though if you go into a battle where none of your units have any real impact on some units your enemy is using. Need to make sure that regardless of the unit combo it's down to how you use them that will determine whether or not you can win."

    Sorry but I have to disagree. Any good 40k player will tell you that a balanced army and combined arms are the key to victory and not just blowing all of your points on big guns and heavy armour. I agree with the principle that the player with the better tactics should win, but having tactical choices to make when building your army is what sets out a good RTS from a bad one, or Relic RTS from everything else.

  • SenkaSek #20 7 months ago

    @ darkmorgado

    There is a mod for Medieval II: Total War called Call of Warhammer. http://ww w.twcenter.net/forums/forumdisp...

  • tankboi #21 7 months ago

    Pleeeeeeease include decal importing/creation and also painting, so you can create your own factions.

    And a turn-based mode that simulates the board game. Some of us prefer Space Hulk to Red Alert, y'know.

    This would make me very happy. Surely the turn based mode would be so dead-easy to implement?

    Pretty please??

  • Dudeofmanynames #22 7 months ago

    I absolutely adored the first dawn of war and used to play it with a crappy computer with integrated graphics that ran it at like 15 fps and loved every second of it but I never really got into Dawn of War 2 although the customization was awesome, so if they could hit a cross between Dark Crusade (I think this game was when the RTS crown passed from Blizzard to Relic) and DoW 2 I think that's a recipe for success

    P.S Having said all that just make Homeworld 3! Please god make it so
    Edited by 2 at 13/07/11 @ 20:26

  • warbossrazskull #23 7 months ago

    i hope in dawn of war 3 that there is campaign like in dark crusde but instead of 1 or a few planets you get the entire dawn of war un war universe and you get to pick your race and then you pick your clan,chapter,etc for example orks you take controll of the goffs you make your warboss then you bild your troops invade other clans places building up your clan you lanch wwaaagggghhhss agenst humies or someone and like orks get money easy with thie teath but they alwso need to get resources to build tanks guns armor etc from planets and you keep expanding till you know your heading to terre with your horde sort of like star wars empire at war and space marines pick your chapter make your chapter master and go off to fight untold horors and you can launch crusades and terre is like there own faction giving money resources troops missions to all the chapters and everyrace is awsome in its own way but anyway its a awsome dream but wont happen but i can ramble on about this all day if i wanted to one more thing they better bring back my flashgits they are awsome but i hope they arent crap like in the tabletop board game
    Edited by 1 at 06/08/11 @ 06:20

  • Nazgren #24 4 months ago

    what i would like to see if a mix between the galactic mode in battlefront 2, spore and dark crusade.

    for anyone who diddent play battlefront 2 there was a campaign mode where you could fly around a solar system in a big spaceship and invade different planets while trying to beat the enemys ship doing the same thing

    the spore bit would be the incredible customisability and once again, the method of getting around in space stage

    and then the dark crusade bit of controlling a large army

    @murton
    are you on crack? the tabletop game is anything but balanced, its not about tactics, thats fantasy... in 40k whoever has the biggest and best gun wins, thats why necrons are so good, have you seen there new codex? its so broken its ridiculous