Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War – Definitive Edition PC Review
Summary: Dawn of War - Definitive Edition is undoubtedly the best way for new players to experience these classic games, however it's somewhat more difficult of a recommendation to series veterans.
4.3
For the Emperor!
When Relic Entertainment released Dawn of War in 2004, it was quite possibly the best game get in the Warhammer 40,000 universe at the time. Arguably, it remains one of the best representations of the source material to this day, faithfully delivering an experience that resembles the tabletop game while making it accessible to casual fans simultaneously.
Two decades later, Relic has once again returned to the 41st millennium to deliver the definitive edition of Dawn of War.
For those that don’t know, the original Dawn of War is an RTS game in the vein of Command & Conquer, Starcraft, and the like (subsequent sequels departed from this formula quite drastically). Players assume the role of an army commander and must collect resources, build up a base and army, then complete various objectives, most of which involve obliterating their opponents.
In the years following the original release, three expansions were produced. Each adds iconic, new playable races and campaigns to go with them. By the time Soulstorm, the final, standalone expansion, was released in 2008, a total of nine factions were available to play, providing a huge amount of content. Dawn of War Definitive Edition includes the base game and all expansion packs in one neat package.
So, what’s different about the Definitive Edition over the original releases, other than all being in one place now, rather than 4 separate Steam library entries? The main changes are all under the hood. For example, the initial releases up to Soulstorm didn’t natively support 16:9 aspect ratios without mods. Now, there’s full 4K, high-framerate support for all content.
The camera system has been tweaked to better suit the high resolutions and aspect ratios, with a great draw distance to ensure that nothing is missed on the battlefield. The HUD has also been tweaked to consider the wider screen space.
Visuals have been tweaked, with new lighting, higher resolution textures, better shadows, and other visual effects. This is still a game from 2004 at its core, though, and honestly, other than some textures being noticeably higher resolution in cutscenes, I wouldn’t have noticed a huge difference if I hadn’t looked at them side by side (this could admittedly be a case of rose tinted glasses affecting my memory).
Dawn of War Definitive Edition doesn’t position itself as any kind of remake or remaster, however. Depending on how you look at things, this could be seen as both a good thing and a bad thing. There isn’t a huge number of quality-of-life improvements outside of better support for modern hardware and resolutions.
Bugs and annoyances present in the original game are still present here. For example, there’s a huge amount of overlapping dialogue in the game. If a mini-cutscene or mission dialogue is triggered while units are moving around and saying something, then both play out at once, meaning that neither is particularly audible at that point. I feel like this would have been a perfect opportunity to correct some of these issues that have been present for decades at this point.
Pathfinding is one area where it’s claimed that an improvement has been made. Large armies seem to move around the battlefield more coherently. However, I still had units bugging out and refusing to move for seemingly no reason anyway. This was admittedly a rare occurrence, but a noticeable one, nonetheless.
It’s a fine line to tread. Relic has done a wonderful job in preserving the original titles and bringing them up to date somewhat, but they all worked fine as is on modern hardware anyway, albeit without native widescreen support in some instances. Mod support has thankfully been retained, with a mod manager built into the game, which is excellent news for anyone moving to this version over the originals and wanting to continue to have an updated experience.
Final Thoughts?
This all might sound like I’m a bit down on Dawn of War – Definitive Edition, but that isn’t the case. I love the original releases, and this is that with some modern tweaks, and I’ve adored the time spent diving back into the games. If you already own the original releases and don’t want to, or can’t be bothered to mod them, this is certainly the best and most convenient way to play these games now. Those who do play and mod the original games, this is a bit of a harder sell.
Definitive Edition isn’t a free upgrade to existing owners of the Anniversary Edition (which itself was a free re-packaging to owners of the original titles a while back), with a 30% ‘Veteran’s Discount’ being offered to them to get this new version instead.
Ultimately, Dawn of War and its expansion packs are still great. A stellar representation of the Warhammer 40,000 universe and the eclectic groups that inhabit it. Still standing head and shoulders above many other titles in the franchise, and indeed in the RTS genre.
This definitive edition is absolutely worth playing if you don’t have the games already, but I’m less certain that it’s a necessary purchase if you already have a way to play them.
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