What Happened to Dawn of War 3?- When Good Sequels Go Bad 

I think all anyone wanted was the size and scale of DoW1, mixed with the gritty graphics and tactical combat of DoW2.

The asinine pursuit of the ever elusive "wider audience" has killed many games.

What core to me about Dawn of War Series is... ...the f**king _sync kill._

>dark crusade doesn't have the overpowered factions >necrons hahahahahahahahahaha

“Overpowered factions in soulstorm.” *shows dark eldar footage* *tried and failed not to laugh*

So from what I understand: Dawn of War 1: strategy Dawn of war 2: tactics Dawn of War 3: Starcraft, Esports thing

DoW 1 was brilliant.

I'm a "rare" player that likes both Dow 1 and 2.....I won't even touch 3 with a 100ft pole

My main understanding is that DoW's core is memetastic cutscenes. Especially if Scott McNeil (Mighty is he!) is involved. "SSSSSSINDRIIII!" "We'll call dat plan stupid. It's named after you." "METAL BAWKSES!" "Spess Mahrens!" "Steel Rehn!" "*Blood for Blood God! Skulls for the Skull Throne! Let the galaxy burn!*" Chances are everyone in this comment section read those in the right voices.

What's the core of Dawn of War? THE EMPEROR!

No no no, it was announced with a lot of hype, but when get got to see the actual gameplay, everyone just told them that this wasn't what we wanted. Relic ignored all feedback and the launched version was as bland as the fans of the first two games feared.

>warhammer game >Endless Space music

A huge reason Dawn of War 3 lost me was its awful singleplayer campaign. It was just a tutorial for the three factions and was boring as hell. Dark Crusade and DoW 2 had race-specific campaigns with their own stories and even mixed things up with RPG elements. They used them as a way to really bring the Warhammer 40k universe into the game. Dawn of War 3 had none of that and it felt completely sterile. I don't play a whole lot of multiplayer in RTS games and generally only play Dawn of War if I play a RTS at all. So the awful singleplayer really killed it for me well before the terrible multiplayer did. Hell, I actually enjoyed the multiplayer more. At least there I could pick my faction to play without having to have it interrupted by the other two that I didn't give a shit about.

I think the core of dawn of war 1 and 2 is being an over the top Rts where every unit and faction feels badass. In DOW1 this might mean huge combats and in 2 it can be very small team of space marines mawing down waves of tyranids. In both games the game try to make you, your units and your enemy feel epic. It's the RTS equalvilent of Doom. Dow3 fail to do so. While the heros are made to be over the top, they are goofy and take out unit too much easily, while your basic units just feel like basic units, not like space crusaders taking part in a huge never endings war.

What went wrong? They showed us a Warhammer 40k trailer then gave us a reskined LoL/Dota

There is something so painful about DoW3, it has everything that has killed the RTS genre: cartoonish graphics, trying to be a e-Sport and cattering to the MOBA market, attempting to emulate Starcraft. Some times I wish Blizzard never existed, with them becoming the how-to for RTS studios we have seen too many franchises sacrificed.

The core of DoW is just 40k epic manliness with awesome voice acting, and a solid campaign. Thats is why DoW2 was still well received. Fans adopted to the change of DoW2 because the game was fun and didnt spoiled the 40k coolness. The single player element is without a doubt what hooked the majority of the fans, most people didnt even play multiplayer, they just wanted to have fun in the campaign and maybe some solo skirmish games. DoW3 campaign is terrible and the gameplay itself is heresy.

TACTICAL JUMPING TERMINATOR ARMOR! Ffs they should have hired the guys behind the Mod Apocalypse... Now that was a proper DOW game, and it was just a mod, wait its still getting updates and its a mod. Modders did a better job then 3 A developer...

1:52 Demons Souls created the entire foundation for every game after it.

I know a lot of people will disagree with me on this, but to me, even though I barely played the game, Dark Souls' core is NOT the challenge. It's the atmosphere. People MADE IT about the challenge because that's what they took away from the game, but in my opinion the challenge is only there to further enhance the oppressive feeling of being alone in a hostile world with unknown horrors that make you look like a kindergartener.

Even if you just ignore the gameplay and just look at the aesthetics of DoW III it becomes immediately clear that the devs were failing to understand DoW and 40k right from the concept art stage. It looks like Starcraft but even more cartoony, with shiny plastic Space Marines and gleaming bright metallic Eldar. The Orks waddle about like cuddly little goblins rather than lumbering like hulking, sinewy killing machines. You could reasonably describe the DoW 3 Warboss Gorgutz or the Mega Armoured Nobz as "cute"...how ridiculous is that? Gabriel Angelos has transformed from a realistic haggard, scarred man in power armour in DoW 1 and 2...into a Lego Space Marine with a concrete block for a head. It looks like someone has crudely drawn his silly grimacing expression on his face with a plasticine knife. His proportions are totally ridiculous as well - his head is the size of a f*cking space marine's torso and he's almost bigger than a dreadnought. I cringe every time I see his new portrait and model, it looks painfully stupid. It's completely bizarre artwork for WH40k's classically GRIMDARK setting and doesn't fit at all with the previous games either. The only reason Relic would even design it like this was if they were appealing to a very casual audience who doesn't even know about the other 2 games. DoW 1 and 2 both had bloody, visceral CQC animations and intense combat. DoW 3 just looks like masses of Lego blocks coated in gloss paint being set on fire and thrown at each other. I can't even understand WTF is going on in 90% of gameplay footage, it's just a total meaningless clusterf*ck of weird looking units.

I would have forgiven a lot of Dawn of War III's sins if it had just presented a proper 40k aesthetic with lots of blood, guts, dismemberment, disembowelment, and powerful weapons that cause all of the above the moment they make contact. But what do we get? Huge masses of infantry sitting in front of one-another going 'pew pew pew' for ages before anyone gingerly lays down and dies. Bolters don't leave pretty corpses, they leave behind kibbles and bits. The mistake was twofold- trying to make a family-friendly 40k experience, and slowing down the pace of gameplay to a crawl. Otherwise, my issue is that there was just sooooo much micro. Even while you're already busy with base-building, and area control, and resource management, and getting tech/upgrades, you have to move around multiple hero units that each have multiple abilities to look after. A casual player can only be expected to handle so much at a time.

I would say the core of Dawn of War is aggression and map control. In both games, taking territory was key, but DOW 3 throws that out because there's no way to apply aggression due to the massive turrets. At least, that's one part as far as I see it.

I see, you and I play Dark Souls for different reasons

"it's not like there was this massive load of negative backlash or anything, it just fell by the wayside after about a week" This is categorically incorrect. There was a tonne of negative feedback before this even released. When it first got gameplay leaked a lot of fans were upset and annoyed. I was there. You can still find the videos about it on channels such as Arch Warhammer. It was bad because it wasn't anything like the previous two Dawn of Wars, and it was trying to copy a game that was already dying - Starcraft 2. If people wanted to play a game like StarCraft, then they'd play StarCraft. But, people don't want to play a game like StarCraft, which is why StarCraft has such low player count and is only kept alive by a small and dedicated pro scene. This game was dead on arrival.

I agree with this video, but I found that most Warhammer40K fans simply found that the game didn't feel like it was part of the WH40k universe. Basically, the game tried to go for a larger audience and in doing so, sacrificed everything that made actual fans of the universe want to stay around. This has happened before, with games like Storm of Vengeance... When one makes a space marine in DOW3, one does not feel they've got a strong group of heavily armored units to play with.. No, they are trash units... Assault marines, trash units... Scouts, trash. Devestator units... Trash... Everything was simply trash when at one point an elite squad came along and showed you that they were able to wipe them out like it was nothing. This shouldn't be the case, because it's not how the universe works. So when every bit of lore, in most other games or books or in the table top game, presents space marines as heavily armored killing machines that almost have no equal. To see them get wasted in mere seconds is off-putting. Compare it in contrast to Dow2: The last stand, which was really just an added mode where three players get a single hero that they deck out to try and survive waves of enemies. Those three hero units are really powerful as well, they can wipe the floor with a lot of enemy units... BUT, it never feels like those enemy units are useless, or trash units. When the orcs come, you know it's going to be an overwhelming force with a disregard for their own safety, they will do anything to throw you to the ground with missiles, grenades or whatnot so they can overwhelm your hero unit and take em down. Oh shit, the eldar arrived, and they've got units that seem a little weak, but have very powerful weapons. You can take them down rather quickly but if you get caught off guard, their superior weaponry will make cutting through your armor seem like a hot knife cutting through butter. You're constantly at risk, constantly moving and oftentimes failing to work together enough to fight against enemy numbers and abilities. DOW 3, offers nothing of this, your elite units are practically invincible vs so called 'line units', you do not feel any threat from them, ever, no matter how many there are. And that's my two cents :D, it doesn't feel like it fits.

DoW 3 reminds me a lot of Command and Conquer 4, especially at release. One multiplayer game type, pointless leveling system needed to access new units, half baked new game design, tedious gameplay, boring campaign with a disappointing story, mediocre graphics, and a failed attempt to move into esports market.

"Theres almost no good dawn of war music" how about no.

The core of DoW is the mechanics: cover, morale, building whole units, base layout mechanics (and buildings that have unique functions by faction), units that can mix melee and ranged, jump units, being able to not just capture supply points (a unique mechanic compared to previous rts) but to reinforce them and use them as hardpoints, and probably campaign mode featuring upgrade mechanics for commanders. Everything on that list is part of DoW 1 and 2 and largely absent from 3. Oh and being even-handed about faction presentation (90% absent from 2, but there eventually). IMO this is critical because it serves all 40k audiences. If you count Fire Warrior there have been as many games with playable Eldar as with Tau and Isha help you if you're a Sisters fan. DoW2 decided to throw this away like DoW3 threw away Last Stand. Because idiots.

What made all Relic games, including CoH, so beloved, was the core of a particular squad based strategy system of most importantly cover and environment mechanics. This is the core they dropped in DoW3. Most people thought it was shit. I find it so annoying when you get these people who say "Well, I liked it", as if that means anything. The vast majority didn't, and that's why it died in weeks.

What killed the game for me was the lackluster campaign. It was basicly just a tutorial. The campaign was what I loved most about 2.

That Starcraft skit was good, well done.

When me and my friend discovered Ultimate Apocalypse and played it day and night, we could only imagine what DoW3 would be like... Fast forward years later. We check the trailers. Supreme dissapointment. Guess it's UA forever..

Dark Crusade & Soulstorm = Dow at its finest

Good video, good points, I agree with almost everything said. However, this one small thing: "There's almost no good Dawn of War music so I'm using some on-theme stuff." You're kidding right? DoW1 OST is composed by Jeremy Soule who also did Elder Scrolls, Guild Wars, KotOR, Neverwinter Nights, Icewind Dale, Dungeon Siege, Total Annihilation, Supreme Commander, Company of Heroes and Unreal 2, among many others. He usually does good work, and I don't understand why you would think DoW1 OST is an exception. It sounds good to me, and when I look at comments for videos of it, other people seem to like it as well. As for DoW2 OST, listen to this: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-ivYRTDFYmtY.html - It's called Show Me What Passes For Music Among Your Misbegotten Kind. It's thematic, iconic and bombastic as fuck. Which was exactly what Doyle W. Donehoo was asked by Relic to make, and which he carries through on the entire OST. It's also long enough to be the background music for this entire video. Also, I listened a bit to Endless Space 2 and Stellaris OST just to get familiar with your music picks, and I think both sound too clean for 40K. Where is the grit and grime? This is the grim darkness of the far future after all. Endless Space 2 music also seems more intimate and personal, not enough broad epic strokes. Stellaris is closer in that aspect. Neither feels even close to as much like 40K as Jeremy and Doyle's contributions do, for me at least. Anyways it's all personal opinion. It just rubbed me the wrong way that you had a controversial one, yet stated it like it was simple fact. Some people think there's a lot of good DoW music, okay? :)

Dawn of War 3 broke my heart with all its missed potential. It actually has the strongest faction identity of the 3, in my opinion; Space Marines actually feel like a small, elite force that needs to exploit their advantages to win, Orks feel like a horde that runs on shared hype (they LITERALLY get buffs by initiating a death metal concert), and Eldar dominate the hit-and-run game by wearing down enemies before they can take any real losses. Space Marines felt elite rather than being the "normal" guys, Orks felt as chaotic and crazy as their lore suggests, Eldar win through death by 1000 cuts. It's just that every battle felt like hordes of faceless goons mashing each other's faces, with a few really distinct heroes in between that make the rest of the game feel irrelevant. I hope they try again sometime soon. DoW4 could be pretty cool, especially if they set it in Gathering Storm... Primaris Blood Ravens, Ynnari, maybe some modern Necrons?

People just wanted high res DoW1 it was an easy task, a simple task, an incredibly obvious task. And they failed.

A sequel doesn't necessarily need to be different than its predecessor to be good, just improve upon it

The campaign map in DoW 1 wasn't added until the second expansion. The base game and the first expansion had mostly linear campaigns.

WOAH WOAH. I am pretty sure most of the Dark souls community loves the story. Also that was Dawn of War: Dark Crusades campaign, Dawn of War (The original) had an actual story driven campaign not the tabletop map system.

the first 2 games felt like Warhammer 40k games.. the third one jumped on the moba bandwagon. I really wish they do a remake of Dawn of war 1. I remember when dark crusade came out I had to call in sick because was too busy enjoying it.

“Humble Spacemarine...”

Dow core ? 1: voice acting 2: melee/range 3: caos 4: sync kills 5: good graphics

"There's almost no good Dawn Of War music". That's just unacceptable.

The issue is why you do not find the core of DoW is because you dismiss the most important elements out of hand. The feel of the game. The atmosphere. Both DoW games took itself seriously. They had presented player with brutal and enjoyable campaign where DoW3 is an insult to the lore. Both games felt like DoW games. They were brutal, full of spectacle and aggressive in playstyle where aggressive map control was the key. DoW 2 felt like DoW 1 game, because due to these qualities. It signified grim, darkness of w40k millenium. DoW3 threw all of that out of the window by talking how it is a moba. How it is catering to esports. It took out all the atmosphere out of the DoW games. All the depth and complexity. It wasn't hard to create DoW3. Anything new or old would had been great. Total War DoW3? Massive unit sizes? Titans? Oh yes, charge me harder Relic! Yet, it was neither of that. Relic put everything that games hate most. Focus groups. Imaginary wider audiences. Mobas. Esports. Disrespect to lore like jumping terminators. Anime style graphics. Arcade playstyle. The entire atmosphere and soul of DoW was gone. This is nothing which is hard to define as parts leading to said disaster were obvious from the start. Just go and watch Arch Warhammer. He called from the day 0 this disaster.

fun fact: after 2 years of the release of this video, dow ss currently has the most players playing the game among all of the dow games in existence.

This low key makes me wanna cry, I was so happy when they first announced DoW3...

One thing I would disagree with the whole game "core" thing - it does not have to be a single thing. Let's drift again to Dark Souls shall we? Dark Souls is not only the challenge, it is a combination on things - no, you can't have Dark Souls without Gothic medieval setting, you can't make it into a cyberpunk for example and still call it Dark Souls. You can't make Dark Souls without iconic rolling and obscenely telegraphed moves and character progression system. And finally the story - guess why so many people ditch Dark Souls 2 as not a "true" Dark Souls game - because it has so little to do with the first game - it has plenty to do with a DLC to it, but not with the main plot. As for Dawn of War 3 - this game is a combination of developer's ignorance AND arrogance. The blind search for wider audience with MOBA elements isolated fans of the originals, while failing to gather interest of MOBA/competitive RTS fans - WHY WOULD they even look at DoW 3 if they already had their games. Relic literally tried to punch into the market that was already full. Another problem is that they completely ignored complaints of fans - since the early beta-tests people were raising their concerns about multiple things - botched elite system, somersaulting Terminators, lascannons firing like multilasers (C.S. Goto would be proud), Eldar having GOD DAMN SHIELDS, lack of cover system, lack of sync kills, lack of Paul Dobson as Gabriel Angelos, lack of Nicole Oliver as Macha... Basically no original voice actors. While it is true that there are two camps about Dawn of War 1 and 2 - they both basically wanted the same thing - scale, complex basebuilding and customisation of DoW 1 combined with cover system and complexity of combat from DoW 2. Instead, people got a mashup of DoW 1 and 2 indeed, just worst of the two games instead of the best. Annoying base turrets from DoW 2 turned up to 10. Annoying and restrictive hero/elite system from 2 as well. Annoying spaminess of the original DoW 1 (I'm not talking about Dark Crusade and on, the VERY original). On top of that people got corridor-like maps, not destructible environment, virtually no cover system, no diverse animations and sync kills that made the original games famous in their own right, no dynamic movement of units of DoW 2, no squad upgrades and customisation from DoW 1. To add insult to injury, we still got insane conflicts with Warhammer 40k fluff both DoW 1 and 2 are kind of infamous for - the thing is - in those games at least those inaccuracies were hilarious in their own right and at the very least were a meme material. DoW 3 was a mess destined to fail the very second it hit the shelves.

DoW 1 and 2 are vastly different but feature never change: 40k atmosphere, kill sync and a semi-realistic combat system. I still remembered that stupid of a opening for DoW 3 demo. The not Gabriel Angelos jumping 10m onto a cliff while back flipping with his hammer. The one sentence kill my hype for DoW to the point i stop caring for the game after that. As a fan of both Dow 1 and 2, 3 feel so boring to play. Assault Marine become "light infantry", las canon become some kind of rapid firing lazer gun, bubble cover, grenade that glow in the dark, light that cover 50% of the screen during big fight and the dev priorities "unit movement style" so that we can recognize them by how they walk. I am sorry but even a person that don't know Warhammer can tell the different between a tactical, assault and a devastator marine without looking at how they walk thank you very much.

I was introduced to the 40k universe back in the day through DoW 1 and fell in love with through that brilliant game.... I was never for MP so i basically enjoyed all of the expansions. DoW2 blew my mind away because it felt like you were writing the lore ourselves and i prayed for DoW3 to be COH2 style...i was against the game going back to a classic RTS because for one i felt that would mean the game lore would be lost in the macro aspect of the game and as it turned out the writing in DoW3 was very weak and did not progress the blood raven lore as the previous two games did...also in lore...space marines as a chapter is just 1000 men with 10 companies... the other reason DoW3 reduced space marines to spammable armies...when adding lore i cant even imagine going back to classic DoW 1 old school RTS large armies for space marines as a faction...

I think your missing the point in dark souls. Yes the gameplay is essential but the atmosphere and tone is also just as important. If they didn’t manage to make it so interesting they wouldn’t have done so well. Just look at salt and Sanctuary as a example. DOW 3 failed in both atmospheric and story. While no the DOW series is by no memes a Shakespearean story, it dose give incredibly voice acting that carries the story. Also it threw all of the realism people enjoyed out of the window. Orks now act and look like Saturday morning cartoon villains. The space marines have no weight to them and the eldar have no grace. Just look at jumping jack Gabriel for a good example. Also it failed at being a RTS game. Just spam heroes out and you win. Granted I give you that your reasoning is not ludicrous, I personally thought it was a unique take on a MOBA game. But due to balancing and shit updates along with have a gross mis understanding of both the universe of Warhammer and what people wanted. They failed

Back before THQ went under, the plan was something more like DoW1, at least as far as the multiplayer. World-spanning warfare, with territories being fought over. And the idea of custom armies (you pick your composition), with faction-wide bonuses for holding territory.

I liked all the dawn of war games, played them all and i might know why the third one lost the interest of people really fast. The first reason was when the game couldn't even be playable. I mean the graphics. Players saw the trailer, this magnificent trailer when you say "wow" and were waiting for that famous grim and dark ambience but were greeted with the cartoonish style of dawn of war 3. Not even in sell, Dow3 got people talking trash on it. The second reason was the army management, in DoW2 each unit is really important. In the first one, Squads of units are really difficult to eleminate as you could renforce them anytime you wish and could handle more damage (and others reasons tbh), Making this army management in the first 2 really intersting and fun to play, watching for your step, and your units. In Dow3, it's not about units, it's about Army. An army can die really fast, can just run back to your base being even able to take less damage doing so making your decision not important. They feel weak and not important because in front of them are... Elites. elite in down of war 2 was working because you had a very small army, and it's only a powerful leader, the others units have all their roles to do and feel important. In down of war 1st. those elites are just kind of bonuses. You could destroy an ennemy army without having them, it was the managing of your troops that allows you victory. In the third, all is concentrated around them. They just cut armies in half , are bags of HP and an annoyance to the fight against the two armies. So you totally forget all the forces you managed to create for those stupid overpowered heroes and, as all your forces can die pretty fast, you can lose your armies in 20sc. The covering system wich was really an idiot move as it forced people to play in a static mod and you just can't bring that when you used to do such a good cover mechanic with DOW 2. Even the first one got better covering system (and vulnerable environment for troops) NDLR: 1- graphic and ambience (core of all Warhammer games) 2- Army management

For me, the core elements of the series was the games respect for its setting, and map control. Dawn of war 1 was all about taking over territory to secure resources to produce more units, and not once does it compromise the lore of the series for its gameplay Dawn of war 2 had that as well, but was more about grabbing territory on a map to score victory points and maintain your position. On top the game taking more advantage of its lore and setting to explore prominent themes specific to 40k (Wholesale planetary extermination, supernatural corruption, holding out against hordes of foreign invaders) Dawn of war 3 had none of that. It had a boring, interchangeable story that didn't care much for its setting, and was all about hero units with more focus on their special abilities and sending waves of trash mobs to your opponent's base before one side's defenses gives in

I don't get the obsession with Space marines. When a new game comes out it's 3 armies are Space marines, Orks and Eldar. Why not try a completely different viewpoint? Start with Tau, Chaos, Necrons?

Pls the Core of darksouls is not the challenge its the Atmosphere. Though that Challenge is Part of it

all DoW fans, all we ever wanted was for DoW 3 to be made with DoW 2 graphics with current systems tweak and upgrades and the gameplay and base building of DoW 1, that's it... that's all i wanted and i bet most DoW fans wanted for DoW 3 but relic had to compete with starcraft as an esports game, and now.... and now... they didn't even made a DLC faction for the imperial guards.... dammit!!!

Dawn of War is feeling like you are commanding a group of your miniatures that have come to life.

Difficultly is not the core of dark souls. If they made an extremely difficult match-3 game and called it a dark souls game that wouldn't work.

It's simple really: We wanted DoW:Soulstorm with a new coat of paint and a new tactical map. DoW3 was marketed as if it was DoW1, but instead we got the bastard child of DoW2 and DoTA.

After you started talking about Resident Evil, I forgot this was about DoW3

Is that stellaris music I hear?!

I liked Dawn of War II, but I wouldn't exactly call it an RTS, nor a MOBA. I'd say it's more of a Real-Time-Tactical game, akin to UFO: Aftermath, or UFO: Aftershock.

Huge 40K fan. Loved the first DoW, not a big fan of the second, and completely forgot the third was a thing. Your review has convinced me to stick with Dark Crusade. Solid video - you've earned a new sub!

I think the core of Dawn of War 1 & 2 was immersion. Sync kills, great voice work, great but understated graphical presentation, units which all felt useful and striking, and so on. Dawn of War 3 failed because it dispensed with MOST of this. The graphical presentation was loud and flashy, sync kills were removed, and hero units were made so powerful that the rest of the units felt more like fluff than a real army. The voice work seemed to be fine still, but that just wasn't enough.

Flame me all you want but i didnt really like dow2 , i dont know i just like basebuilding.

Dark crusade is the best in my opinion I still play it I have a laptop dedicated to just this game

If they scaled down the power of all the elites, made the infantry unique to each faction as they should be and removed those silly cover things, the game could be good. But just watching those clips (though i should say i have played it) it's obvious that elites dominate the battlefield. What's the point in even building dudes when two abilities kills all of them regardless?

If they'd literally remade Dawn Of War 1 with a community workshop and updated graphics/units, it would have sold like gangbusters.

The problem that DoW has no real core is probably due to the fact that it was released a few years too early. The developers once said in an interview that they wanted to develop DoW I with more tactical depth, but the technical capabilities were missing. Approaches of it are present in the game. Like the very rudimentary cover system. That they had the will to develop such a game they proved impressively with CoH I. But instead of DoW I being based on the engine of CoH I, it is instead based on the engine of Impossible Creatures.

"What Happened to Dawn of War 3?" They StarCrafted and MOBAed it! The "campaign" is a shitty predictable fan fiction. This game as being rightfully purged and erased.

Kills me when people say Dark Souls 1 started the Souls games. Seriously? Demon Souls was insanely popular!

This dude is way off with his Resident Evil and Dark Souls comments.

"They just made starcraft" The entire buildup to that I actually thought he was describing Command and Conquer Generals not gonna lie

For those who don't get the irony of comparing Dawn of War 3 to Starcraft, according to legend Starcraft was the result of Blizzard working with Games-Workshop to create an RTS of their property and coming to, shall we say, creative differences. So Blizzard took elements of what was the 40k tabletop and created Starcraft from it.

I'm more of the RTS type so I loved Dow1. But I admit I also enjoyed Dow2 a lot because it was just a very well done, micro intensive, skirmishes video game, and the campaign was well done. So I'm pretty open and a huge Warhammer fan overall. Still, I won't touch DOW3 ever. Pretty amazing how the developer couldn't even get a guy like me hooked. They fucked up so badly.

now i wanna play stellaris

And the core is Ressource points on the map. Clearly.

The sequel to DoW1 was CoH1, it successfully combined the macro of DoW1 with what would later become the micro of DoW2. Unfortunately relic appear to have lost their way with modern iterations of these franchises.

Funny, because according to Miyazaki, challenge is officially NOT core aspect of Dark Souls (and I agree with him, tbh).

If a game tries too hard to get an e-sport crowd in this time, then it already failed.

I hear stellaris soundtrack, I press like.

Dawn of War 2: Elite Mod... You're welcome! Watch "Indrid Casts" to get a feel for it.

I actually like DoW 3 and the gameplay. I think the main issue is the single-player campaign. BUT. I also think I know what the gameplay issue is. Elites were designed to work with other elites (party up). They weren't designed to work with their army (beyond the base function). The way to ameliorate this is fairly simple. Get rid of the elite point acquisition system. Instead, allow all elites to be usable from the beginning of the match. (Allow them to be dropped in, still). This way instead of being a slow burn with elites you want to play, you get immediate, tactical satisfaction with how you deploy your elite warriors immediately. The focus of DoW3 is clearly the Elites, so you might as well remove the gatekeeping of your army, and make the Elites the primary tactical focus. This shifts the focus from the army being the initial thing you make that serves to make your elites, stronger, to the opposite, where your elites serve your army by increasing your army strength until you get the super units that are strong enough to even defeat low ranking elite units.

A wee but late but the core of DOW 1 and 2 (at least the skirmish modes) is map control. As a fan of the AOE series, the undisputed GOD of the RTS genre, you don't really have this because you can always just build farms and chop wood IN your base, you can give up HUGE portions of the map to your foe if you don't need gold. In DOW 1 and 2 YOU MUST fight over the control points for your resources, and while this does exist in DOW 3 there is one small problem, there is no space for movement or decisions, you just smash mobs of armies into each other down predetermined lanes.

“Dark Souls 2 tightened the controls” HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHA

The core aspect of a Warhammer series is your attachment to it's characters. There is certain term for it - "your dudes". When in DoW 1 you upgrade your squads you remember each squad by its role: Tacticals that you outfit with missile launchers become "guys that can break vehicles and buildings". Predator tank with lascannon upgrades becomes your "tank to kill other tanks with". And you remember them, you use them and sometimes lose them, feeling that loss because you lost your specialised squad and suffer the consequences of their absense, when you encounter something that would be their job to handle. In DoW 2 it was more of the same, each squad had a purpose and you modified them to accomodate for your opponents. same tactical became "generator/horde busters" with flamers, "anti-heavy infantry" with plasma, "anti-vehicle" with missiles. You rememebered which squads had sergeants and witch didn't. You remembered which hormagaunts had slowing bullets upgrade and which upgrades you hero had. Even elite, late-game units had a personality, a character: terminators were "those awesome guys you can just throw wherever you needed them and they would do the job", landraider would be "your mobile base", baneblade was a "siege engine" that you had to take care of, swarmlord was you "linebreaker" that would lead the charge, every single one of them mattered. And then, we had a faceless mess of the DoW 3. Every single sentence in this video is true and this is the most damning thing about this game. Facelessness. You can't outfit you commander, you can't make troops differ from each other in any way. Every match is more of the same blending mess that washes over your mind. DoW 3 didn't have "your dudes", it had "competetivness", "balance" and visual spectacle. But nothing that would move your emotions, nothing that required thinking, and no place for you to implement your own personality onto the game.

My God, it's easy! The core of Dawn of War, why everyone plays it is the Warhammer 40k universe.

As someone who loves the series and was sad that the game failed, here is why: 1. The voice actor for Gabriel was changed which pissed a lot of people off cause the og. voice actor's voice was like listening to a commander before battle. It filled you with inspiration and made you think you will smash whatever you were fighting. 2. The tutorial took too long to complete so most people just skipped it and this led to people that were new to the series in general, not understand most stuff that was going on. 3. A lot of non-lore friendly stuff. They gave Gabriel the ability to JUMP, DO A FUCKING FLIP, GRAB HIS FLYING HAMMER FROM MID-AIR AND SMASH DOWN. And he is in standart issue terminator armor. For those unfamiliar, what I call "standart issue terminator armor" is a diffrent kind of armor than what space marines usually wear. It is a very heavy and durable armor that also has a mini-void shield. This makes the user very hard to even scratch at the expense of less mobility and manuverability. There is only 1.5 other armor that is heavier than a standart terminator armor. The reason I said 1.5 is cause one of these armor's is actually a second armor you wear on your armor. Basically a Hulk Buster suit for Space Marines. The other armor that is actually an armor is the Cataraptchii armor which rarely gets used cause of how heavy it is but offer even more durability. So, basically, what Gabriel does can be compared to jumping up 2 meters in the air while holding a 100 kg weight and wearing blast-proof armor for regular human standarts. And also they made an ability so that with a spesific upgrade, a Deff Dread can tunnel through the ground at the speed of fucking sound. These are just 2 examples of many MANY of the dumb stuff. 4. The models were bad. Dont get me wrong, the game looked wonderful. But, it was too bright and new. Everything shined so bright that it was really hard to understand what was going on. And all the models for troops looked so god damn new. It was like they never saw a single battle. For the Eldar things, it would be acceptable but Ork's and Space Marines, no. 5. The games pace was slowed by a lot. They made a rework to the cover system where if you take over the defense point in the middle of the map it was basically a victory. Resource production was also slowed down by a lot. 6. The heroes were unbalanced. If you wanted to win, you took the cheap shit so you can create them early on and just decimate everything. The more expensive ones were even more broken but the reduction of the resource production speed made them very hard to build before the game was already almost about to end. 7. The advertisement was cringy and scripted. They showed the devs "play" an early version of the game which was just 2 matches where 4 devs were making commentary over the matches. It jumped from one match to the other and it was really dumb. And when they made a Q&A with some of the veterans of Dawn of War. It was very obvious it was scripted cause they didnt ask anything people wanted them to. And instead of giving early access to people who actually play the game, they gave it to random ass youtubers who mostly have not made a video about the game after the one they made to advertise the game. 8. Salt from both sides. Both sides basically argued like children in a "My dad can beat your dad!" argument but one side had the option to ruin the other kids dads work and the other kid had the option to take one of the kids favorite toy. In short, both the kids did the bad thing. They tried to revive the game with some balance changes and free skins but they never changed anything we actually wanted to have changed. 9. The game was unbalanced too. Some non-hero troops were so strong that they were basically just cheaper heroes. 10. Garbage launch. The game only had 3 races on launch for some reason while Dawn of War launched with 4. There were less gamemodes than Dawn of War on launch too. 11. Shitty ending. The ending was garbage. The 3 heroes we played as during the campaign fight a big-ass Khorne daemon that got summoned and defeat it. Then it gets revealed that the planet was also a Tomb World. The Necron's getting revealed was cool but the game died before it got added. So the game is stuck with only 3 races and sweaty meta-slaves, people that bought the game recently or people that still play the game in the hopes of it getting revived. The campaign itself is not as bad as people make it out to be though. 12. They tried to attract "bigger audiences" before attracting their main audience. And of course, it didnt work. Edit: Almost forgot, they removed sync kills for "better game flow". It took a lot of the soul out the game.

I liked the video, but I thought it could go a bit deeper. There are 8 Dawn of War Games: Dawn of War, Winter Assault, Dark Crusade, Soul Storm, Dawn of War 2, Chaos Rising, Retribution, and Dawn of War 3. To me I see Dawn of War and Winter Assault as Story Driven minimalist RTSs. The series removed resource gathering from the game and instead player fight for control points as the only currency. The single player is very cut scene and story heavy. Dark Crusade and Soulstorm are Campaign Map games. Stripped down 4X where you control a map and fight RTS battles. Dawn of War 2 moves toward a Company of Heroes model, I like your point about Warhammer 40K Diablo RTS. I think of this as focusing on the story drivenness of Dawn of War and Winter Assault and changing the mechanics of the game to reinforce this, the game isn't about armies but unit and heroes. Chaos Rising and Retribution further this. Chaos Rising goes deeper into a single faction. There is nothing like the moment when your squad is betrayed by one of your own and the 5 possible endings. Retribution gives more factions and replayability in each faction but less compelling individual stories. I found Retribution and Chaos Rising to be very micro management intensive and great games for 2 player Co-Op play as each player controlling 2 characters made the options easier. Dawn of War 3 didn't seem to fit into either of these 3 types of games and so I never bothered to buy it.

Kinda bold to say that "Dark Souls 1 created the foundation" on games with certain higher base difficulty. Whatever connects best with the audience I guess.

The great thing about Dow 3 was the sound track! I listen to it on Spotify when I play other games!

Ultimate units are still in DOW 2, yeah I can take a baneblade with two squads of wraithguard but they are still in the game. Also the core of dawn of war isn't the game play but the atmosphere of it, they way your units seem like they have existed before this battle and Emperor willing will continue to exist after it. Whether I command a massive army in DOW1 or a small band in DOW 2 the units despite having no will of their own seem to react to the situation I place them in.

Dawn of War 1 was about building a machine over time and giving it guidance about what to hit and when. Dawn if War 2 was about buying a distinct sports car, being told what add-on features you could buy, and then driving it as best as possible.

I just wanted TWO things. Force Commander Vanilla Ice back, and the awesome finishing moves. Both are absent. They done fucked it up.

I don't care what people say Resident Evil 5 was amazing fun to play co-op.

Idk about DS2's balance changes being a good thing. To many mobs

They could have just make DoW like WC3 and that would just make perfect sense between hero and base building

Does anyone else see the irony of A WH40K RTS game trying to emulate Starcraft?

"Dark Crusade doesn't have overpowered factions" - Spoken like a Necron player. Also, DoW3 has pretty fantastic music. The shared core of Dawn of War 1 & 2 isn't gameplay or the nature of the challenge, but rather an attempt to accurately represent the lore and fluff of the series. There's reason why 40k fans fall in love with Eliphas or deeper characters like Thule or Angelos, and that's because they can lend a level of believability and versimilitude to the universe while also representing its more insane aspects. A clear example of this core lacking in Dawn of War 3 is with Angelos himself: he's no longer the pragmatic mix between strategist and guardian from Dawn of War 1, but instead seems content to charge onto a planet freshly emerged from the warp while doing backflips in terminator armour. This relates to the point you made about Dawn of War 3 sacrificing a lot of the depth and mechanics that were in the previous games, and in so doing, the game fails to meaningfully represent the huge variety and depth of the universe it's licensed under. This is obviously unique to the franchise compared to, as you said, Dark Souls. Because, at the end of the day, what do the words "Dawn of War" make you think about? The starting of a war? Being on the ground? Witnessing some big, huge burning ball rise above a scorched earth and being utterly powerless whether it does so or not. Unit lines, backstories, short-stories for each province in the campaign map, an extended campaign where you get to know each officer under your command, and an expansion wherein each officer has the potential and rational chance of falling to darkness. In a way, Space Marine is a better sequel to Dawn of War because it manages to capture the essence of the universe in the same manner as DoW 1 & 2. And the same reason we never saw a Space Marine sequel is the same reason Dawn of War 3 failed miserably: Relic was going bankrupt because of a terrible investment and was desperately trying to make money back; what's the most profitable, popular strategy genre? But a MOBA is also the same kind of gameplay totally antithetical to the Warhammer universe. It should be no surprise then, that the same management who sank Relic's money into said investment wouldn't realise the error of the design of Dawn of War 3.