The Historical Context of Dawn of War III

Blogger and RTS enthusiast The Wayward Strategist (sometimes known as Brandon) is a writer whose insight and keen knowledge of the RTS genre has led to many pieces that have made the rounds in our studio. Knowing that, we jumped at the chance to let him chat with members of the Dawn of War III team about our newest title, and how our past has informed our present, and where we’re going in the future.

Here’s Brandon’s first piece on his blog! In it, he chats with Game Director Phil Boulle about the history of Dawn of War III, and the lessons we took forward from Dawn of War I and II into this title. We won’t spoil all of it for you here, but here are a few excerpts;

On Dawn of War III’s resource system…

"My takeaway from this exchange was that Relic has put a lot of thought and effort into creating their resourcing system, more than I had given them credit for prior to speaking with Phil. The requirement to empty out an enemy resource point before utilizing it is actually pretty friendly to the defending player: it’s a much bigger task to completely capture and start using a resource point than it is to defend it and rebuild. There’s more nuance to the system in general than I’d feared there would be. I was afraid that they’d dumbed the system down considerably by moving to only one type of resource point. The reality is thankfully a far more nuanced and balanced system."

On connecting the past and present…

"Connecting the past Dawn of War games to the present, Phillippe talked about one big departure from past titles: the free forward building of troop structures. “Originally we weren’t sure if that was going to stay. But we kept it when we saw that it created these interesting possibilities. There’s a predictable risk/reward dilemma in building out on the map. You can reinforce more quickly, but you’re more exposed. Writ large, the player is encouraged to play out in the battlefield and not be chained to a base. And that’s what we wanted.”

On evolving the franchise…

“Creatively, we didn’t set out to replace either other game. Both games are still out there and playable, and still excellent. We did set out to bring some of the best elements of previous titles together into a new game, and create a new feeling for our audience. The Hero/Elite Economy in part exists to scratch some of the same itch that was scratched in Dawn of War II. It’s not dependent on base building, it’s mostly time-based. Strategic choice comes down to loadout, like Hero wargear in Dawn of War II, and build order. These are decisions that will feel familiar to Dawn of War II players.”

Make sure to read the piece in full over on The Wayward Strategist, and stay tuned for a second post as Brandon chats with Game Designer Carolina Mastretta about Army Customization!