Relic Entertainment has abandoned real-time strategy, MOBA-hybrid Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War III, in an effort to focus on future projects. In a statement issued to Eurogamer, Relic stated that the game, published by Sega, failed to perform to expectations, indicating that it was hard to justify any current and future investment in the game. Dawn of War III was unable to grow its audience, in addition to its dedicated player base being too small to make a positive impact.
Prior to its release in April 2017, Relic was already projecting long term plans for expansions for the third installment in the Dawn of War series, including additional races from the three that were available at launch, which were Space Marines, Eldar, and Orks. Unfortunately for fans of the series, it appears that Dawn of War III will fall well-short of repeating the success of 2009’s Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II, and the expansions that followed.
The original game in the series, released in September 2004, was followed by three expansions leading up to the release of Dawn of War II in February 2009, which also touted three successful expansions. It is clear to see the accomplishments of the first two games in the series compared with Dawn of War III from a quick glance at the games’ Steam reviews, with statuses of “Mostly Positive” and “Very Positive” respectively for the first two games. Dawn of War III, on the other hand, shows a recent review status of “Mostly Negative”, and “Mixed” overall. However, the mostly telling statistic may be the player counts for all three games, with Dawn of War and Dawn of War II maintaining significantly higher recent concurrent players than Dawn of War III.
With Dawn of War III now in the rearview mirror, Relic Entertainment can shift its focus to developing the award-winning RTS game, Age of Empires IV. The Vancouver-based studio will take the helm on the fourth game in the Age of Empires series (formerly developed by Ensemble Studios), which was announced in August 2017. The game will be published by Microsoft Studios. No announcement has been made yet as to when the popular game will be released.
While news of abandoning Dawn of War III surely comes as disappointment for long-time fans of the series, the shifting of focus for Relic may help to ensure the success of its next project. The studio has clearly shown its capacity for delivering high-caliber RTS games. Hopefully, it can walk away from Dawn of War III with lessons-learned and apply them to Age of Empires IV; a series that comes with a large and loyal player base of its own.