Relic ceases ongoing development of Dawn of War III due to poor sales

[midian182]

Relic Entertainment has announced it is to stop the ongoing development of Dawn of War III. Eurogamer reports that the studio could no longer justify working on the game given its small player base, and will instead be moving on to new projects such as Age of Empires 4.

Following years of rumors, a sequel to 2009’s excellent Dawn of War II was finally revealed back in May 2016. Lovers of the series were excited to see if Relic would focus more on real-time strategy elements, much like the original game and its expansions, or whether DoW III would be closer to its predecessor, which features more RPG elements.

Sadly, many players were disappointed by Dawn of War III when it arrived in April last year. Its RTS- and MOBO-style gameplay failed to appeal to fans of either genre, while the new, cartoonish art work was heavily critsized, especially by those who preferred the earlier games’ grittier graphics.

Unsurprisingly, DoW III didn’t meet Relic’s sales expectations, and while the studio acknowledges it has a dedicated group of players, there just aren’t enough to warrant further investment in the game.

“When a game underperforms, plans need to change. With Dawn of War 3, we simply don't have the foundation we need to produce major content. We're working in close partnership with Sega and Games Workshop to determine the best course of action, while shifting focus to other projects within our portfolio,” Relic said, in a statement.

The announcement likely means no more updates or DLC for DoW III, so the chances of getting to play as races other than Space Marines, Orks, and Eldar now appear slim to none.

The decision has also thrown the future of the Dawn of War games into doubt. Much like Andromeda did with the Mass Effect series, DoW III’s poor reception might see the franchise put on hiatus.

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https://www.techspot.com/news/73181-relic-stops-ongoing-development-dawn-war-iii-due.html

 

[stewi0001]

Now just make it open source and move on.

 

[mcborge]

Dawn of war 1 was fantastic, Dawn of war two was ok, Dawn of war 3 nope, looks too much like a mobile game to me.

 

[Alex Voinica]

Not sure if I should blame Relic or Sega for this failure....

 

[Misagt]

I really enjoyed DoW 2, and DoW was really good too. But my friends told me to stay away so I did. Chasing the MOBA crowd was a huge mistake. It completely abandoned it's player base to pursue some mythical unicorn of mass MOBA players. Hopefully who ever makes DoW 4 learns from this.

 

[Panda218]

I remember being super excited to try the beta after having roughly 300 hours in DOW2 online multiplayer, but it was garbage and I only played 2-3 games before uninstalling it.

 

[psycros]

The players have been incredibly forthright about what they want from a 40K RTS so the devs and Sega have only themselves (and their greed and laziness) to blame. Time and again we've seen the requests:

* As many factions as possible included at release.
* Bigger maps with actual terrain and multi-level structures.
* An AI that understands how to take advantage of the aforementioned map improvements.
* Less emphasis on singular command points, more on overall control of map.
* Strategic missions such as one side trying to complete construction on an unfinished weapon emplacement with the other trying to destroy it.

There are more but these are some of the ones I've seen the most.

 

[poohbear]

When I saw the cartoony graphics and animations I just couldnt. What is this?? Disney??? Then the MOBA gameplay and I was like what the HELL have u done to my beloved DoW2?? I was a DOW2 diehard till the end. LOVED that game for its emphasis on tactics and it actually got me into the 40k universe! How could they abandon their playerbase with the catastrophe that was DoW3?