One of the greatest 40K classics is returning. We now have some new information about the improvements in the Definitive Edition directly from the developer Relic.
Improved graphics, improved controls, improved AI – the remaster of Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War promises some meaningful revisions in the Definitive Edition.
After the announcement trailer, we sent the developers at Relic Entertainment a few questions about further details of the new edition, and now we have the answers.
7 News about the Definitive Edition
Here we summarize the new information about the improvements that Philippe Boulle, Head of Design at Relic Entertainment, has revealed to us:
- There will be 21:9 support for both the game graphics and the interface. You can either leave the interface elements centered or move them to the edges of the screen. With resolutions wider than 21:9, black borders may still appear.
- The view distance on the maps will be significantly increased, but no further than already shown in the trailer. However, modders can override this limit on their own maps.
- The shadow resolution will optionally be higher than in the announcement trailer. This would be particularly helpful in the in-game cutscenes, where shadows were still pixelated in close-ups. In general, however, the Definitive Edition already uses significantly improved lighting technology and now displays detailed character shadows for small units, for example, which only had rough blob shadows in the original.
- There will be no free key binding within the game, but you can freely customize the key bindings via file entries, as in the original. If this works the same as in the original, it can be very fiddly. However, there will be three presets to choose from: Classic, which is the same as in the original. Grid, where the keys are arranged according to their interface positions, and Modern, where the hotkeys are as similar as possible for all factions.
- The developers promise one of the most important gameplay improvements in the pathfinding. The AI should now be much better at dealing with bottlenecks. In particular, units from your own faction should no longer get in each other’s way as much. In addition, squads should now be able to follow their colleagues better, which could make controlling larger armies much easier.
- The camera can now be zoomed out further. Optionally, you can also preset it to the old distance and then zoom in or out manually.
We already knew that all official content, including all DLCs, would be included. There’s also mod support and a 30 percent discount for owners of the Anniversary Edition.
The remaster normally costs €30 and is available as a download version at GOG.
Unlike the recent 25th Anniversary Remaster of System Shock 2, the German language version is also included here in its entirety, including voiceovers.
Details about the development
The Definitive Edition took around a year to develop, with a team of around 15 people at times. However, long before that, the team had already checked whether the old developer versions of the game still worked at all, so that any improvements could be incorporated.
Unfortunately, we haven’t been able to play the new Definitive Edition of Dawn of War yet. However, we hope to be able to give you an impression from a test version when it is released.
Relic has not yet revealed what will happen after the remaster. No new editions of Dawn of War 2 or the Company of Heroes games have been announced yet.
New DLCs for Dawn of War 1, similar to the remasters of Age of Empires, are also not officially planned yet.
