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General
Gameplay
Technical
General
What is Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War?
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War is the next industry-defining real-time strategy (RTS) game from Relic Entertainment (creators of the Homeworld series and Impossible Creatures).
Set in the same epic science-fiction world as Games Workshop's popular table-top wargame, Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War promises to revolutionize the RTS genre with its visceral front-line combat, squad-based tactical gameplay, and streamlined resourcing model.
Is Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War just like the tabletop game?
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War is set in the same epic science-fiction world as the tabletop game, but it is not a direct adaptation of the tabletop game. Relic's expertise is in developing innovative real-time strategy games, and the effort behind this title has been no different.
Rather than trying to be an electronic version of the tabletop game, Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War makes use of the tabletop game's rich and varied setting as a foundation for its new generation RTS gameplay.
Will I have the ability to customize my armies, as in the tabletop game?
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War offers players the ability to customize their armies through the use of the Unit Customization tool. This tool allows players to personalize their armies by selecting colors for units' bodies, shoulder pads, kneepads, eyes, and badges and banner heraldry.
Using the Unit Customization tool lets players select how their armies will look in multiplayer games, including re-creating the specific color and badge markings of renowned chapters from the Warhammer 40,000 mythos.
Who is developing this game?
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War is being developed by Vancouver, Canada-based Relic Entertainment, Inc.
Founded in 1997, Relic Entertainment has become an industry leader in the development of innovative real-time strategy games for the PC. Relic's first title, Homeworld (1999) was received to widespread acclaim, garnering several 'Game of the Year' and 'Strategy Game of the Year' awards from major industry publications including PC Gamer and Computer Gaming World. Since then, Relic has released Homeworld: Cataclysm (2000, co-developed with Barking Dog Studios), Impossible Creatures (2003), and Homeworld 2 (2003). Today, Relic is building on this legacy by developing multiple ground-breaking projects in the RTS genre.
In April of 2004, Relic Entertainment became an internal studio of international publishing giant, THQ Inc. For more information about Relic Entertainment, Inc., visit www.relic.com.
Who is publishing this game?
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War is being published by THQ Inc.
THQ Inc. is a leading, worldwide developer and publisher of interactive entertainment software for a variety of hardware platforms including PC CD-ROM, wireless devices, and those manufactured by Sony Computer Entertainment America Inc., Nintendo and Microsoft. For more information about THQ Inc., visit www.thq.com.
Has Games Workshop been involved with the development of this game?
Games Workshop has been involved in every aspect of the development of Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War. The result of this strong collaboration between Games Workshop and Relic Entertainment is a highly entertaining game that breaks many conventions of the RTS genre, while remaining true to the setting that Warhammer 40,000 tabletop gamers know and love.
When will the game be released?
Currently, Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War is slated for a Fall 2004 release.
What differentiates this game from other real-time strategy titles?
Historically, RTS games have been defined by their combination of gameplay that forces the player to balance resource gathering with strategic combat. Additionally, RTS games do not typically represent environments with realistic scale, their graphical quality is not highly emphasized, and the 'strategy' often devolves to a case of who can click fastest.
Because of the focus on collecting resources, winning strategies often revolve around bypassing massed armies and attacking your opponent's weakest 'peon' units in order to disrupt supply lines. This takes the focus away from combat.
In Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War, visceral frontline combat is the absolute focus. Because of this, all aspects of the game have been created to support providing the player with the most entertaining, most visually appealing combat ever seen in an RTS. Units and environments have been created with a level of detail never before seen in this type of game. Thousands of unit combat animations, a synchronized melee system featuring spectacular kills and deaths, intense high-impact weapon effects, and mind-blowing abilities all come into play to make Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War the most visceral real-time strategy game ever.
Additionally, the resource model bypasses 'gathering' for a more streamlined system of strategic points. By controlling these locations of strategic significance, players are able to gain 'requisition' points with which to call in reinforcements, better weapons and equipment, and more powerful units.
As a result, Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War is less about managing peons and chopping down trees, and more about massive armies clashing on the chaos of the grim, dark future of war.
Who will like this game?
While the game is based in the Warhammer 40,000 setting, it will appeal to anyone who enjoys real-time strategy games. Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War focuses on entertainment and creating the sense that you, the player, are deploying your powerful armies to engage the enemy in a life-or-death struggle for domination of the battlefield. Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War is designed to be instantly accessible and extremely entertaining, so no prior knowledge of the Warhammer 40,000 setting, or of real-time strategy gameplay, is required to play this game.
What are the game's top-3 features?
The three features that help Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War stand out from the competition are its emphasis on visceral frontline combat, its streamlined resource model, and four playable races taken from the extremely popular Warhammer 40,000 setting.
Gameplay
Which races do I get to play in Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War?
Players experience the single-player campaign from the perspective of the Blood Ravens, an entirely new chapter of the Space Marines created by Relic Entertainment and Games Workshop specifically for Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War.
The epic single-player story has the player commanding the Blood Ravens through Brother-Captain Gabriel Angelos, and his trusted sub-commander, the powerful psychic Librarian Isador Akios. Over the course of the single-player game, Gabriel and Isador will encounter the barbaric Orks, the mysterious Eldar, and the malevolent Chaos.
In the multiplayer game, players can select any of the four full races included in the single-player game: Space Marines, Orks, Eldar, and Chaos Space Marines.
Do I control squads or individual units?
In Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War, players typically command squads of units, rather than individuals. Issuing orders to a squad causes all members of that squad to respond to the command. Squads may be reinforced on the battlefield, and the weapon configurations of individual squad members can be customized, allowing players to modify the combat effectiveness of particular squads versus specific target types (i.e. anti-armor, anti-personnel, etc.).
Leader units exist as individuals and can be attached to squads, which typically lends the squad certain offensive and defensive bonuses. Vehicles also appear as single units.
Does the game use a free camera or is it locked?
The game is played from a default camera level that gives the player an overhead view of the battlefield, similar to other RTS games. The player will never have to move from default camera to enjoy the game.
However, the 3D engine created for Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War allows the player full freedom to move the camera, including tilting the angle, rotating around the battlefield, zooming in on particular units, etc. While this does not confer any tactical advantages on the battlefield, it does give the player more freedom to enjoy the visceral frontline combat, including synchronized kill and death animations, spectacular weapon effects, and units' special offensive and defensive abilities.
Please note that the degree of camera freedom you will experience in the game is dependent on the hardware configuration of the computer you are playing on. Some features are graphically intensive and may only be available to players using systems above the minimum hardware specification.
What is the unit cap in the game?
Unit cap is broken down into 'squad cap' (the maximum number of squads you can field at any one time) and 'support cap' (the maximum number of vehicles you can field at any one time). The unit cap varies from race to race, with an absolute ceiling of 200 'population', population being the combined total of Squad cap and Support cap.
Please note that some squads or vehicles may require multiple squad or support points (ex. requisitioning a Space Marine Dreadnought deducts 4 points from your Support cap).
Are there 'leader' units in the game?
Each race has its own particular leader units. Leaders are much more powerful than standard units, have unique weapons, special abilities, and usually improve the morale of nearby squads. Some leader units include the Force Commander (Space Marine), the Warboss (Ork), the Farseer (Eldar), and the Chaos Lord (Chaos).
Will I need to harvest resources in this game?
In Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War, you do not harvest resources, per se. Rather than forcing players to build hordes of peon units and manage the collection of coal or the chopping down of trees, Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War makes use of a streamlined resource model.
All battlefields have locations of strategic importance, things like bridges or bottlenecks in the terrain, which in the overall context of a war represent the physical areas that give you tactical advantages over your opponent. In Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War, these are called 'Strategic Points'.
Controlling Strategic Points increases the rate at which you receive 'Requisition'. Requisition represents the degree of importance an unseen 'high command' has placed on your operations. If you control several strategic points, your efforts carry a greater degree of strategic importance within the context of a greater battle, and therefore it will be easier for you to gain materiel (units, vehicles, structures, etc.).
Players spend Requisition points when calling squads, through battlefield reinforcements, requesting vehicles or structures, researching an upgrading technology, etc. Requisition is generated continually at a rate determined by how many Strategic Points the player controls.
In addition to Requisition, each race has the ability to generate 'Power' (through things like Plasma Generators, etc.). Power is required to maintain certain units, vehicles, and structures.
How does morale work?
In addition to having health, all units in the game have a morale attribute. Morale is an abstract quality that represents a unit or squad's combat effectiveness.
Just like health, morale can be damaged during combat. When a squad's morale reaches zero, the squad is considered 'broken'. When broken, a squad's combat effectiveness is significantly reduced, and its movement speed is increased (allowing the player to quickly remove the squad from battle). Please note that at no point is control of a squad taken away from the player.
Some weapons are specifically designed to inflict the maximum morale damage of units and squads. Sniper rifles, artillery, and flamethrowers are particularly devastating in this regard, and open up new strategic possibilities for players.
Do units have limited ammunition?
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War is all about huge armies meeting each other in the intense chaos of visceral frontline combat. It is not a game about counting beans. As such, players will not be required to deal with mundane accounting tasks.
Will I have a persistent army that I carry from mission to mission?
While the persistent fleet (army) is a mainstay of some Relic games (Homeworld, Homeworld 2), this characteristic does not suit the nature of Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War. In this game, the player starts each mission with a pre-selected group of units, which can be enhanced as the player takes control points, builds up base facilities, etc.
How will mission objectives be communicated to me?
In the single-player game, mission objectives will be communicated through three primary methods: the non-interactive 'story' sequences that bookend each mission, the 'War Diary' which provides high-level objectives for the current mission, and the briefing screen which summarizes the current encounter and outlines specific objectives and win conditions.
Additionally, during the course of a mission, players will be informed of revised objectives or changes in status through intelligence reports from other characters.
In the multiplayer game, specific objectives and win conditions will be an inherent part of the selected map, and/or can be set by the game host.
Technical
How many players can the multiplayer game support?
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War supports up to 8 players in the multiplayer game.
Do you support features such as matchmaking, ladder rankings, etc.?
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War will support advanced multiplayer features including matchmaking and ladder rankings. A full list of multiplayer features will be available prior to launch.
Will I be able to create my own missions?
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War will ship with the same map editing tools used to create the game.
Will I be able to add my own content to the game?
Relic has always been deeply committed to the mod community, and provides tools and other resources through the Relic Developer Network. We are committed to providing the mod community with the tools and resources it needs to experience creative freedom within our games. For more information, visit the RDN closer to game launch.
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