Editing Dawn of War III (section)

==The End Times Hath Come==
On February 8th 2018, [http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2018-02-08-relic-leaves-dawn-of-war-3-behind-as-it-moves-on-to-new-projects Relic announced they were officially stepping away from Dawn of War III], citing low player counts as the chief reason.

 While Dawn of War 3 has a dedicated player base, it didn't hit the targets we were expecting at launch, and it hasn't performed the way we had hoped since. It's been tough for us as professionals who want to make great games for our players, and for us as people who care a lot about what we do. 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.

Given this, the [https://community.dawnofwar.com/discussion/15957/patch-upload-as-of-05-feb-2018 February 8th patch] was likely just Relic releasing whatever work they'd finished on the proposed expansion and fixing a couple remaining bugs before bidding the game farewell. With Relic now focusing primarily on Age of Empires IV, Dawn of War III has potentially become a Franchise Killer, though Relic and Sega are apparently in talks with [[Games Workshop|GW]], so time will tell. It should be noted that while Relic has no plans to produce major content, they are still patching and maintaining the game as well as putting out occasional Free-LC skins.

===What went wrong?=== 

''Dawn of War III'' suffered pretty terribly from Relic basically having lost all the staff who made the original two ''Dawn of War games'' in the intervening years and had to be replaced by a bunch of people less familiar with the genre or the expectations of the series. Like a lot of companies, the focus on the brand name obscures the fact that few people actually remain with a company over a long period of time, especially when Relic transferred over to Sega after THQ bit the dust and a lot of Relic's former talent left the studio with the collapse of their former publisher. This more than anything, hit the development cycle of ''Dawn of War III'' pretty hard, as well as a confused set of developmental priorities and the loss of the people who gave the previous two games their strong art direction, leading to a much less eye-catching aesthetic. While not an Aliens: Colonial Marines scale disaster in terms of development cycle, ''Dawn of War III'' was in many ways hamstrung before it ever left the gate. 

There were clearly a lot of interesting and good ideas, there was the potential for a great traditional base-building RTS game to revive a genre many publishers regard as no longer worth major investment into. It's just that the execution was left in less-than-capable hands, revolving around a brand they weren't ready to bear the burden of. ''Dawn of War III'''s failure hurts not because it's irredeemably bad, but because beneath all the many horrible flaws is a lot of wasted or unrealised potential for something that could have been as good or better than its predecessors. All it needed was that same strong sense of direction they had so that it wouldn't end up as a confused mess thrown together by a relatively inexperienced team under corporate mandate to get ''something'' out for early 2017 on the PC market, while the golden child of Creative Assembly was still putting ''Total War: Warhammer II'' together.

===Dawn of War III Is Dead! Long Live Dawn of War III!===
After Relic announced they were stepping away from the game, a small community of fans and modders tried rallying together in an attempt to resurrect ''Dawn of War III'' through Twitch streams, community game nights, and new mods. The goal was to generate enough interest to get Relic to return to the game, or at least release more mod tools so the fans could pick up where they left off. Although ''Dawn of War III'' remains a mostly-dead game, there's still a dedicated [https://discord.gg/qtJYAd ''Dawn of War III'' Discord server] which hosts regular community game nights. If you still want to play online, this is the best way to do it.