Dawn of War is back! Relic Entertainment has announced Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War Definitive Edition, an updated version of its beloved real-time strategy game first released over 20 years ago. As a huge fan of the original 2004 game, I just had to find out more beyond the debut trailer, below. So, like a well-trained Inquisitor, I tracked down design director Philippe Boulle and quizzed him on this most welcome of grimdark revivals.
Boulle started at Relic in November 2005, and his first project was Dawn of War’s second expansion pack, Dark Crusade. He went on to work on Dawn of War: Soulstorm, Dawn of War 2, Dawn of War 2: Chaos Rising, Space Marine, Company of Heroes 2, Dawn of War 3, and Age of Empires 4. In short, he’s been with Relic for a long time and he’s worked on Warhammer 40,000 video games for a long time.
So, who better to reveal what exactly has changed for Dawn of War Definitive Edition? We also gushed over Dawn of War’s iconic opening cinematic, and, of course, I had to ask about Dawn of War 4. And if you need a catch-up on everything announced at Warhammer Skulls 2025, we've got you covered.
IGN: People have been asking for Dawn of War to come back for years, which I’m sure you and Relic were well aware of.
Philippe Boulle: Well, we're happy to be able to do it! Essentially as we entered our phase as a more independent studio, we had a conversation with Games Workshop that effectively was the Spider-Man meme of both of us like, ‘Hey, you know what would be cool?’ So we're really psyched to be able to bring back classic Dawn of War in a Definitive Edition.
IGN: Was it something that you approached GW with? How did it actually come about?
Philippe Boulle: The very first thing we did internally was ask a few engineers to take a look at the code and make sure we could still build the game from the source code. Is there anything that's just outright preventing this from happening? And once they got that up and running, we had a conversation with Games Workshop and we were both like, ‘Hey, we want to do this.’ ‘That's good, because we want to do this too.’ And from there it was just, alright, let's dig in and figure out what the best way to do this is in a way that will bring value to the player base, but also respect that classic gameplay and classic foundation.
IGN: It was a THQ game right back in the day. The logo is seared into my memory! I never really fully understood what happened to Dawn of War. Obviously Sega was involved with the last one. Did you guys take Dawn of War with you when you went independent?
Philippe Boulle: When THQ dissolved, THQ had — I'm sure there are legal details that I'm missing — but had essentially a master licence for 40K video games at the time. And once THQ went through Chapter 11, that licence ended. And so Games Workshop regained the ability to license video games.
And then Relic was acquired by Sega, and then Sega and Relic negotiated a renewal of the RTS portion of that licence. We didn't do a big master licence, we did a licence for the games we were producing. And then as Relic left the Sega umbrella, there was a transition period where we worked with Sega and we worked with Games Workshop to preserve the ability to have the back catalog still available on Steam and then move forward with this Definitive Edition.
IGN: Well I'm glad it was able to happen, whatever route it took.
Philippe Boulle: Me too! And I have to give a shout out to Games Workshop for having faith and confidence in us. Obviously we've had a long relationship with them, but they could have chosen to go a different direction. It means a lot that they wanted to continue working with us.
IGN: It looks like you've said, ‘We want to touch this up and make it modern from a playability point of view,’ as opposed to changing the way the gameplay works. I get the sense you wanted to make it play the same but work better. Is that a fair assessment?
Philippe Boulle: That is absolutely a fair assessment. When we were evaluating whether we wanted to do this, the first thing we did obviously was play the game as it existed and try to come at it with fresh eyes. Two things were very clear to us. One, the gameplay stood up, it still was fun, still was engaging. It was quirky in a way because it was made 20 years ago, so some decisions were different than if you were making a new game right now. But that was part of its charm. We really didn't want to mess with that.
And then the other thing is there were these weird hoops that you needed to jump through and in some cases that you couldn't address. If you play the original Dawn of War, and I believe Winter Assault, they play in four by three aspect ratio. And even Dark Crusade and Soulstorm play in 16 by nine, but by stretching the four by three. That doesn't feel great. And there's these weird profiles that you have to set up and a bunch of other things that were just getting in the way of playing a game that really still stood the test of time.
And then we were also aware that there were a bunch of decisions made at the time to accommodate performance constraints that didn't exist anymore. So the camera's really close, so you can't actually see very much of the map. We wanted to preserve the intimacy of the game, but we found that if we backed the camera out just a little bit, you got a little bit more breathing room, you could see your base all in one screen. In the original, if you're playing Orks and you build a bunch of Boyz, your squads of 12 or 15 or whatever it is, you have three of them, they don't all fit on-screen anymore. And so that was something we could address. And the other thing is we looked at what modders have been doing for the last 20 years and pulling the camera out was something they almost universally had done, so we definitely took a cue from them.
IGN: So you can pull the camera out!
Philippe Boulle: Well we just have the default camera further back than it was before.
IGN: Yeah, that's exciting. It's amazing how something as innocuous as pulling the camera back is so exciting for a game like Dawn of War.
Philippe Boulle: Yeah, absolutely.
IGN: Okay, but it will play the same? You've not rebalanced it, you've not changed the way any mechanics work?
Philippe Boulle: No. When we notice bugs or things that never worked for whatever reason, we have been addressing that. There's a handful of maps where the multiplayer maps, where the data was set up that the Slag Deposits (the places where you can build a Thermo Plasma Generator) just didn't show up. And so those maps never had those. So we've restored those.
I came to Relic to work on what became Dark Crusade, so in some cases I am going back and fixing typos that I made 20 years ago, which is both exciting and embarrassing at the same time.
IGN: Anything bad? I never noticed anything!
Philippe Boulle: Nothing terrible! But apparently 20 years ago I didn't realize that to be confident and to have a confidant were actually spelled differently. So there's a few moments where I was like, ‘Oh, okay, yep, yep, I'm glad to be catching it now.’
IGN: I bet the Warhammer fans noticed!
Philippe Boulle: Oh, Warhammer fans are amazing and they have been so good to us over the years and to Dawn of War in a very real way. The modding community, the fan community, they've become the stewards of the original Dawn of War. There are 20 years of amazing mods, and that was another reason for us not to… we didn't want to break everything. We wanted those mods to still be workable in the Definitive Edition. So on day one you can install these mods and they will work. They won't take advantage of everything that is new in the Definitive Edition, but they will work, they'll be playable, they will look as good as they ever did, and modders can absolutely then update to tie in to the new features.
IGN: Warhammer 40,000 is having a real moment, isn't it?
Philippe Boulle: Oh yeah.
IGN: I can't remember a time when it's been bigger. Space Marine 2 was enormous. Amazon’s Secret Level episode I really enjoyed. There’s all sorts in the works, and the tabletop just seems bigger than it's ever been. Was part of your thinking about why now as opposed to any time in the past where it was like, ‘If we don't do it now, we might not catch this wave that is happening?’
Philippe Boulle: Warhammer 40K, Warhammer more generally have been going from strength to strength for the last several years and so obviously that plays into it. It helps give us the confidence that there's a mass of people interested. People searching for ‘best Warhammer game ever made,’ the original Dawn of War is still high up on that list. So that was another reason; people are still making that search, they're still finding the original Dawn of War. It would be great if they didn't have to jump through the various weird technical hoops and we were able to give them a game that didn't have those weird limits. So that was really where the thinking came from. We have been fans of the game obviously for the last 20 years and there is this consistent modding and playing community ever since. So yeah, it just made sense. As long as we felt we could deliver a product that delivered quality to the fan base, that respected that classic gameplay, then that was what we wanted to do.
IGN: The first Dawn of War is the obvious starting point, but it is also the one the core fans always point to because it is more of a traditional RTS, isn't it? It's got bigger armies, the base building. I love Dawn War 2 for what it is and I know it's slightly different, but the first one is the right starting point because it is that one that is always held up as not just one of the best 40K games, but actually one of the best RTS games.
Philippe Boulle: Yeah. It really has stood the test of time. I too love Dawn of War 2. I spent a lot of years working on various aspects of Dawn of War 2. But at the time when Dawn of War came out, there definitely were things that it was doing that were different and non-traditional, right? The way it handled squads, the way it did sync kills, the way it handled resourcing and economy were very different from the games of the time. But as things have continued to evolve, of the Dawn of Wars it is the one that is most in that classic mold. But that classic mold exists for a reason, right? It really hit a nice balance in combat-forward gameplay. There's no one chopping wood in the 41st millennium as it were. But it still had a lot of that RTS counter-play and a lot of that just really fun gameplay, and it's really stood the test of time. So we wanted to honor that in this Definitive Edition.
IGN: It's also interestingly timed because RTS as a genre has fallen away a little bit. But I've got a real craving to go back to Dawn of War. So I wonder if it's actually quite good timing just because people aren't making this sort of game anymore and it's not exactly a crowded market out there.
Philippe Boulle: Yeah, I mean I have lived through six or seven deaths of the RTS I would say, and we're still here. And the other thing is many of the classic RTSs are either still entirely playable or have been remastered or re-released over the last five or 10 years. So there's a wide variety of games that are playable. And just like the original Dawn of War came out at a time when there were a lot of those games playable, our Definitive Edition is coming out at a time when there is more on the market. But its particular combination still stands up as something with its own charming quirks, its own spin on the various formulas. It really satisfied that ‘bringing the tabletop to life’ experience and it still very much does that. Right now it has the added spin of bringing a tabletop game that has continued to develop and grow to life. So it is a bit of a time capsule to 40K in the middle aughts.
IGN: So Roboute Guilliman isn’t around, right?
Philippe Boulle: Yeah, this is fourth edition 40K basically. So Imperial Guard is Imperial Guard and Eldar are Eldar and Necrons don't talk. Not that any of those changes are things I dislike. I absolutely love grandiose Egyptian Necrons, but the Necrons of that time were more of these dusty silent types who just were clawing up out of the ground and it really captured that at that time.
IGN: Grimdark when it was grimdark.
Philippe Boulle: Yeah, sure.
IGN: My words! With the sync kills, were you tempted to go back in there and maybe spice 'em up a bit or maybe add some more?
Philippe Boulle: As we’re going through the units, we're making sure those are there and there's instances where we're like, ‘I don't think this ever quite worked right, we can tweak it a little bit to make sure the visuals are sold.’ But it really was so effective at the time, and as we increase the resolution of the art and improve the lighting and improve the shadowing, all that just helps those things pop even more. So lots more Orks are going to be crushed in Dreadnaught hands and so forth.
IGN: I used to zoom in for those bits! I used to try and get a really good look at them, they were so cool. The opening cinematic is in the trailer. I remember loving that so much. You look at it now, obviously it is dated in terms of the animation quality, and especially in the context of recent 40K animations that have raised the bar. But still, I watch it now and the hairs on the back of my neck stick up, especially when the Dreadnaught comes in for the clutch.
Philippe Boulle: Yeah. It was an amazing accomplishment at the time in terms of the fidelity. We really hadn't seen that for 40K at that time, and it really stood up as something that would reach out and grab you and say, ‘Hey, this is awesome. You need to pay attention.’ And it will still be in the game. It will be playing in beautiful 4K.
The thing that amazes me about it when we look back at it is the directing really holds up. That I think is the undervalued key to it. For the time the rendering was phenomenal, but what really holds up is the pacing, the drama, the ending on this guy running up the hill and getting shot, planting that flag and the drop pods coming down… that just works and that didn't need any changing obviously. That just was like, ‘Oh yeah, that's the stuff.’
IGN: So the Blood Ravens are canon, right?
Philippe Boulle: Of course!
IGN: There’s Blood Raven stuff in Space Marine 2. I can't believe that it crossed the streams!
Philippe Boulle: We had a little cameo of them in the original Space Marine. That was really wonderful. It is a real privilege to have been able to tell stories for something that has become an important part of 40K lore, especially for people who came to it through Dawn of War. I still have a Blood Ravens army and still love them. So yeah, that's really great.
IGN: Traditionally in gaming, when a remaster of a long lost or dormant franchise happens, there's a reason to rekindle the franchise in the minds of the gaming public. It’s a stepping stone, a reason for it to happen as part of a grander plan. What is the dream? What are you hoping to achieve with Dawn of War as part of that?
Philippe Boulle: Really, I'm focused on the Definitive Edition, and the dream for the Definitive Edition is to honor and celebrate that classic experience and bring it to people who probably will have heard of it in some way, but either came of age after it had its moment or tried it but ran into those technical issues I was talking about, or just never really had the sense that there would be other people to play with or whatever, and just bring them in.
And next to them, obviously it's the people who played it back in the day, have been still playing it, and we want them to come back to it and say, ‘Yes, this is the Dawn of War that I remember.’ You come back to it and it's like, yes, this is how I remember it, even if I'm actually remembering it as higher fidelity than it actually was back in the day. This is the experience I'm getting. That's really what this one is all about.
IGN: And of course, I have to ask, is Dawn of War 2 next? What about Dawn of War 4?
Philippe Boulle: I can only talk about what we've announced so far and that's what we're focused on.
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].
