Relic Entertainment has released some exciting news for Warhammer 40,000 fans. On August 14, 2025, Relic plans to release Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War – Definitive Edition to the public on PC via Steam.
This upcoming PC title announced during Warhammer Skulls 2025 is a remaster of Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War, a real-time strategy game that’s considered one of the most beloved video game adaptations of Warhammer 40,000 of all time.
This remaster will feature the original Dawn of War bundled together with all its expansions and include many graphical and performance improvements, among other new additions.
This remaster’s main selling points, according to its release date announcement trailer, include:
- Nine playable armies (Space Marines, Orks, Eldar, Chaos Space Marines, Imperial Guard, Necrons, Tau, Dark Eldar, and Sisters of Battle).
- Four main single-player campaigns.
- 4K Resolution support.
- Upscaled Textures.
- Improved Camera & Lighting.
- 64-bit Modding Support.
- Over 100 multiplayer & skirmish maps.
- New pathfinding improvements.
- Compatibility of thousands of player-created mods.
Additionally, if you own previous versions of Dawn of War on Steam like the Anniversary Edition, then you can get the Definitive Edition for a 30% discount.
I can’t wait to relive my first introduction to the grim darkness of the 41st Millennium.
When I was a kid in the 1990s and 2000s, Warhammer 40,000 was always in the background due to it being a popular British pastime, but I was more interested in stuff like Sonic and Transformers.
It wasn’t until I got my hands on Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War in 2004, after seeing how bloody violent it was compared to Age of Empires and even StarCraft, that I was fully introduced to this grim dark universe.
Despite my complete incompetence with real-time strategy games as a kid (I even had to look up cheats to beat WarCraft 3), I had an absolute blast playing Dawn of War.
Unlike other RTS games at the time, which had players balance resource gathering and attacking enemies, Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War was ALL about the fighting. All the resource gathering you had to do was hold objectives to gather troop-building points (like in the tabletop game), and everything else was building armies as fast as possible to overwhelm the enemy forces in glorious hellfire.
As a result, combat in Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War was extremely fast-paced, exciting, challenging, and brutally satisfying, especially since Dawn of War featured cinematic kills for units.
What also hooked me on Dawn of War was the epic single-player campaigns. Each game felt like an action movie chocked with cool, cinematic set-ups for each mission, and gloriously over-the-top characters exchanging witty banter with their enemies.
On top of that, Dawn of War provided surface-level introductions to the complex universe of Warhammer 40,000 and its various factions, so newcomers can get invested in the plot and characters without having to look up dozens of codex books at Games Workshop.
In short, I loved Dawn of War growing up, and now I get to play it with enhanced graphics and frame rate performance levels.
To be honest, this feels to me like a triumphant, full-circle moment for WH40K fans. Dawn of War was released during a time when Warhammer 40,000 was mainly a niche hobby in the UK, with barely any high-quality video games to speak of.
Over 20 years later, Warhammer 40,000 has become a worldwide phenomenon with plenty of amazing video games that are competing with the best in the industry, like Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2, Warhammer 40,000: Darktide, Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun, and Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader.
I can’t wait to indulge in nostalgia when Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War – Definitive Edition launches on Steam on August 14, 2025, and see what else Warhammer 40,000 has in store for future games like Warhammer 40,000: Dark Heresy.
