Dawn of War III reveal trailer revels in the glory of death by combat

By Jon Martindale May 3, 2016

Dawn of War III – Announcement Trailer

Although Relic Entertainment was handed off to Sega as part of the big THQ selloff of 2013, it hasn’t been shut away in a cupboard for a rainy day. Following the release of new Dawn of War II DLC, Relic has been working hard on Dawn of War III, and now we have our first look at it.

Continuing the tradition of opening the curtain on a Dawn of War story with a CGI trailer, our first look at the universe Relic plans to show us when the game is released, is indeed entirely computer-generated. It blends metaphor with raw action, showcasing many traditional units we’ve come to know and love, as well as some newer releases straight out of the Games Workshop catalog.

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Of course, as hype-building as a CGI trailer can be, gameplay is always preferable. Fortunately, Relic dropped a few screenshots for us, giving us an idea of what the game might actually be like.

Related: Total War: Warhammer specs revealed with new release date

Although Dawn of War 2 was popular in many ways, a lot of Warhammer and Dawn of War fans were hoping for a return to a larger scale real-time strategy fomat, rather than the squad-based gameplay of the sequel. While we will need to see more to confirm, it looks like we might have a blending of the two styles with Dawn of War III, as squads seem larger, though far from the giant armies seen in the original game.

Those hoping for their favorite army from the 40k universe may be disappointed, as we only saw three in this release: Space Marines, Orks and Eldar, three of the mainstays of the series. The Chaos are the typical fourth partner, so perhaps they will appear later, but Warhammer fans may have their fingers crossed for a more diverse crowd in the future.

The release date is expected to be sometime in 2017, but other than that we don’t know much.

What do you think of the trailer and screens? Do they give you hope for the third entry in the Dawn of War series? Let us know in the comments.

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