Seven years after the release of the classic real-time strategy game Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II, fans are finally getting a sequel. Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War III is being developed by series veterans Relic Entertainment and published by Sega, the latter of which picked up the developer and the Warhammer 40K licence for $26.6 million (£18 million) at auction following the collapse of former publisher THQ in 2013.
Details on Dawn of War III are thin on the ground—there's no release date yet, not even a year—but Sega and Relic have dropped a CGI trailer, which shows Space Marines, Eldar, and Orks in the heat of battle. Sega promises that Dawn of War III will combine the large scale battles of Dawn of War with the in-depth customisation of Dawn of War II, although, without any gameplay footage, fans will have to take the publisher's promises with a large pinch of salt.
"Our biggest units ever? Check. Giant orbital lasers? Check. Base-building, epic heroes, huge battles, it's all in there," claimed Relic's Stephen MacDonald in a statement.
While the Dawn of War III announcement comes as something of a surprise, particularly given the sheer length of time since the release of the last game, there have been hints that the game has been in development. In early 2015, Sega renewed its ownership of the dawnofwar3.com domain, which redirected to a blank website at the time. More recently, Relic released an update to Dawn of War II: Retribution's Last Stand mode—a full five years since its release—which added the Necron Overlord as a playable character.
Dawn of War III is the latest game to emerge from Sega since its decision to focus on PC and mobile games over its less successful console releases. The publisher also has the likes of Creative Assembly, creator of the Total War franchise under its belt, as well as Sports Interactive, creator of the hugely popular Football Manager series. (Total War: Warhammer, incidentally, is out on May 24.)
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