I remember playing this game a hell of a lot back in 2004 and 2005 after it was out. That was a blast. A RTS in the world of Warhammer 40k! Who does not love that?! And that was Relic of old at the wheel, so you know you were in capable hands. And they delivered. Little did I know at the time, that it would be the best Warhammer 40k RTS ever. There were 2 episodes following that one, and both were disappointing in their own ways. Dawn of War 2 did away with the base building and made you work with limited resources (boo! boring). Dawn of War 3 had great graphics (and even a native Linux client!) and tried to come back to the roots, but there was no real strategy, and it was not so entertaining at the end of the day.

So, 20 years later, Warhammer 40k Dawn of War is still the king of the hill. Seems unbelievable, but some genres are not always improving over time. Adventure games had their peaks in the 90s, and for RTS? That’s pretty much the same era. This remaster is coming at the right time, since Space Marines 2 in 2024 made a great impact and Warhammer 40k’s popularity is defintely on the rise. So, how is this remaster?

Minimum Effort?

In this edition you get a lot of content:

• The original Dawn of War campaign on Tartarus
• The Winter Assault on Lorn V
• The Dark Crusade on planet Kronus (a non-linear campaign where you can play several factions)
• Soulstorm in the Kaurava System (same again, playable with many factions)

On the technical level they improved the following:

• Support for high resolutions. That’s great, now I can run it on my ultra wide screen. Not all games can claim that. They have apparently improved lighting as well and other effects, but I can’t say I noticed something major there. They have adapted the HUD accordingly.
• They have upscaled all textures of the game to 4 times their original resolution.
• The camera now has an increased draw distance.
• Modding Support: this may be the biggest thing. This edition includes a mod manager, and still supports the mods created in the past 20 years. They have a page to guide you on how to use mods.
• 64 bit support.

You also get access to a new multiplayer mode with automatch as well if you feel like it.

And if you were wondering (hey Nils!), yes, the army painter mode is still in there.

And that’s about it. In terms of content, this is actually enormous. The four campaigns spread over dozens of hours, so even if you only care about the solo experience, this game is worth your money from the get go. If it was still good, I mean. Did it get old in 20 years?

Still Worth it?

The graphics have not aged well. It looked great in 2004, it looks really old (despite all the improvements) 21 years later. But when you look at things from above, which is the usual way of playing the game, it’s not that bad. Still dated, but not awful. It gets worse during cutscenes since they show the 3D models of the lead characters up close. And you get glorious cubes with a couple textures in high resolution. And the animations in such scenes are not great either.

The voice acting is still as good as I remember it. The soundtrack, very appropriate. The story, the missions, the campaign is good, and the action is really fun. This is somewhere close to Warcraft 3 in terms of RTS quality. I was just planning to do a quick review of what’s been updated, but I find myself wanting to do the whole campaign again. It definitely scratches an itch.

Now, I am full aware I suffer from nostalgia. I had excellent memories of Dawn of War, and this serves them back to me in a slightly better format, so who am I to complain? I would have loved a complete recreation of the first episode, but it’s very unlikely that this would ever happen.

Surprisingly, it works quite well on the Steam Deck. The performance, of course, but I am talking about the gameplay. It was never made for anything but the mouse. It comes with an official button and controller mapping to work with the game, by default. It’s well designed and with the haptic touchpads and the numerous controls of the Steam Deck, after taking a while to get used to it, it works well on the go.

The menus and text are a little small, so it certainly does not deserve a Verified rating. I did play at least an hour on the Deck and I did not feel an urge to put it down, so that works for me.

So, when I see an edition that packs a good dozens of hours of solo campaign, and updated controls and support for modern hardware, I am sold. This is a way to keep the original game living for a long time, without denaturing it either. It’s on discount for those who already own the original game. For the others, I would recommend to get it on sale, the full price is a little steep.

You Know What is Coming Next

Dawn of War IV is coming. That’s a fact. Sometimes in 2026 (as announced). And it has base building, and graphics you could hope for. So… I’m cautiously hoping it will not suck. It’s by King Art games - not Relic this time around - they are well know for their (imperfect) Iron Harvest RTS that had awesome mechs, so you can be sure that such things will not be lacking in the next Dawn of War.

In the meantime, in order to judge the 4th on the basis of its merits, I plan to replay at least a full campaign of Dawn of War 1, and see when the 4th comes out, if it can compare.

Disclaimer: we received a key from the publisher for this review, but it has no weight on our opinion about the game.