"Glory to the first man that dies!"

Dawn of War was my first PC RTS game, I played it twenty years ago, so I had a lot of feelings coming into this. The short version is this remaster is exactly what we wanted, which is rare to say in this day and age (looking at you, Warcraft Reforged.)

Visuals
The visual overhaul is tasteful and faithful, whilst still being a noticeable and welcome upgrade. Shadows are massively improved and reflections have been added to all the metal textures, with not a graphical glitch in sight. The models are still basically the same, however, so while veterans will feel right at home, some of you may feel the graphics haven't been improved enough.

Technical & Gameplay Improvements
The 64-bit rate is a massive relief. Prior to this release, activating mods would often result in games ending prematurely with a crash to desktop. It also means more players can safely crank up the settings, finally allowing them to use persistent scarring and persistent corpses, making Dawn of War finally look at its best. This might be the biggest selling point, but a close second place would have to go to the improved pathfinding.

As an Imperial Guard main, giant hordes of guardsmen control much smoother making the moment to moment gameplay a lot more fun and smooth. For those that do not play with mods, I think this is one of the biggest improvements. All four of the campaigns can now all be accessed within the game, which is more convenient, but certainly not high up for me on the list of improvements.

Hotkeys on buttons is a feature that has been added, that makes learning hotkeys a lot faster and smooth than having to hover over each icon mid-match to view the hotkey. A small but significant improvement for those of us that like to master our RTS games.

Lastly, the improvement to the Camera. Dawn of War was notorious for its overly-zoomed camera, making controlling the huge and chaotic battles difficult and at times tedious. This single change helps just as much, if not more so than the improved pathfinding. Mods were able to fix this before, but Vanilla is now a much more enjoyable experience thanks to this change.

Issues
A few of the new hotkeys are poorly thought out, for instance upgrading grenade launchers and attack ground seem to share the same hotkey on the modern hotkey setting. I haven't yet noticed more issues like this but it is certainly possible a couple more errors like this slipped through the cracks. Upon trying to play with friends on the first day of release, getting into a lobby together wasn't working for a time, but I believe this issue was a result of the large amount of players online on launch day, and I do not think this issue will persist.

When playing skirmish and multiplayer, the soulstorm rule set is the default and cannot be changed. This is the largest drawback to this version in my mind. Whilst the Soulstorm version isn't necessarily bad, some might have preferred the balance and options in earlier titles, such as the lack of a unit cap for more elite units such as Kasrkin and the lack of air units (which were only included in Soulstorm).

Conclusion:
If you are a fan of the Dawn of War series, (especially Soulstorm or using mods) this is an automatic YES, especially at the reduced price point. If you are new to the game, this is the perfect time to jump in and learn the game. If you preferred the skirmish mode of previous versions of the game, I'd suggest waiting to see if this is fixed, either by the developers or by modders.

[i]"Glory to the first man that dies!"[/i] Dawn of War was my first PC RTS game, I played it twenty years ago, so I had a lot of feelings coming into this. The short version is this remaster is exactly what we wanted, which is rare to say in this day and age (looking at you, Warcraft Reforged.) [b]Visuals[/b] The visual overhaul is tasteful and faithful, whilst still being a noticeable and welcome upgrade. Shadows are massively improved and reflections have been added to all the metal textures, with not a graphical glitch in sight. The models are still basically the same, however, so while veterans will feel right at home, some of you may feel the graphics haven't been improved enough. [b] Technical & Gameplay Improvements [/b] The 64-bit rate is a massive relief. Prior to this release, activating mods would often result in games ending prematurely with a crash to desktop. It also means more players can safely crank up the settings, finally allowing them to use persistent scarring and persistent corpses, making Dawn of War finally look at its best. This might be the biggest selling point, but a close second place would have to go to the improved pathfinding. As an Imperial Guard main, giant hordes of guardsmen control much smoother making the moment to moment gameplay a lot more fun and smooth. For those that do not play with mods, I think this is one of the biggest improvements. All four of the campaigns can now all be accessed within the game, which is more convenient, but certainly not high up for me on the list of improvements. Hotkeys on buttons is a feature that has been added, that makes learning hotkeys a lot faster and smooth than having to hover over each icon mid-match to view the hotkey. A small but significant improvement for those of us that like to master our RTS games. Lastly, the improvement to the Camera. Dawn of War was notorious for its overly-zoomed camera, making controlling the huge and chaotic battles difficult and at times tedious. This single change helps just as much, if not more so than the improved pathfinding. Mods were able to fix this before, but Vanilla is now a much more enjoyable experience thanks to this change. [b]Issues[/b] A few of the new hotkeys are poorly thought out, for instance upgrading grenade launchers and attack ground seem to share the same hotkey on the modern hotkey setting. I haven't yet noticed more issues like this but it is certainly possible a couple more errors like this slipped through the cracks. Upon trying to play with friends on the first day of release, getting into a lobby together wasn't working for a time, but I believe this issue was a result of the large amount of players online on launch day, and I do not think this issue will persist. When playing skirmish and multiplayer, the soulstorm rule set is the default and cannot be changed. This is the largest drawback to this version in my mind. Whilst the Soulstorm version isn't necessarily bad, some might have preferred the balance and options in earlier titles, such as the lack of a unit cap for more elite units such as Kasrkin and the lack of air units (which were only included in Soulstorm). Conclusion: If you are a fan of the Dawn of War series, (especially Soulstorm or using mods) this is an automatic YES, especially at the reduced price point. If you are new to the game, this is the perfect time to jump in and learn the game. If you preferred the skirmish mode of previous versions of the game, I'd suggest waiting to see if this is fixed, either by the developers or by modders.