A Classic RTS Just Got a Modern Upgrade
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War is one of those real time strategy games that refuses to age. For many players it is the game that defined massive battles, heroic units, and the grim dark future of the Warhammer 40,000 universe. People have spent countless hours in campaigns and skirmishes without the game ever giving them a single shiny achievement to show for it.
That just changed. With the new definitive edition of Dawn of War and a fresh update for the GOG version, this legendary RTS finally gets full achievement support. If you have ever needed a reason to reinstall Dawn of War and hear bolters roar again, this is it.
The definitive edition itself is not a flashy remake. As described in early impressions, it is more of a careful clean up than a full rebuild. The goal is simple: keep what made Dawn of War great, make it run nicely on modern PCs, and now layer in some modern comforts like achievements and better stat tracking.
Whether you are rocking the new definitive edition or grabbing it on GOG, you now get access to the same achievement set. For a 20 year old game, that is a pretty cool second life.
What The New Achievements Actually Do
The new achievement list feels like a love letter to how people really play Dawn of War. It is not just about finishing missions. It is about exploring each faction, messing around with powerful units, and causing as much chaos as possible.
Here is the kind of stuff you can expect:
- Win a skirmish as every faction. Time to finally stop spamming your one favorite race and try the rest.
- Win multiplayer matches as each faction. This may be the trickiest part just because it depends on finding other players online.
- See all the story endings across the different campaigns. A perfect excuse to replay the older campaigns you barely remember.
- Kill 666 Space Marines while playing as Chaos Marines. A brutal and very on brand objective.
- Deploy every relic unit at least once. That means rolling out monsters like the Greater Knarloc and the terrifying Bloodthirster.
The relic unit achievement in particular hits that nostalgic sweet spot. In classic Dawn of War matches, unlocking a relic unit was always a hype moment. These were the gigantic late game units that could stomp through enemy lines and completely flip a match. The problem was that not every game lasted long enough for you to actually build one. Now you have a reason to engineer those longer, more epic battles just to see them crash onto the field.
There is also one extremely fitting achievement called The Grim Darkness of the Far Future which tasks you with killing 40,000 enemy units. That is a lot of bodies and you will probably want to target factions with weaker infantry, like Imperial Guardsmen, to grind that out. Over time though, especially if you love skirmish mode, you will likely hit it without even trying.
Fresh Progress In A 20 Year Old War
One important detail: the game does not retroactively track anything you did in the past. There was simply no stat tracking in place when Dawn of War first launched all those years ago. As the developers explained, they had to add completely new tracking systems in this latest patch to make achievements work at all.
That means everyone is starting from zero, even if you have been winning battles since the CD era. Your hundreds of campaign clears and skirmish victories are legendary in your heart but invisible to the new system.
The good news is that the game is not asking you to replay every campaign from scratch. To get credit for a campaign you only need to finish it once with the new tracking system active. So if you still have an old save file parked right before a final mission, you can load it up, beat that last mission again, and the game should register the whole campaign as complete.
Most of the achievements are designed to feel achievable instead of soul crushingly grindy. The real challenge will probably be the multiplayer focused ones, and that depends entirely on how healthy the online player base is. On the plus side, achievements usually help revive older games as players jump back in to chase those rewards.
Even if you are not a hardcore completionist, achievements offer a fun checklist style way to rediscover what made Dawn of War special. They gently push you to try factions you normally ignore, finish campaigns you never wrapped up, and throw your favorite units into bigger and weirder fights.
For long time fans it is a great excuse to reinstall and revisit one of the best RTS series ever released. For newcomers it is the perfect way to experience a piece of strategy game history with just enough modern quality of life to feel comfortable.
So if you queue into multiplayer and run into someone who seems a little too committed to a certain faction or unit, they might not be trying to stomp you. They might just be hunting that last achievement. And if they quietly ask you to let them win for the checklist, well, maybe consider the greater good.
Original article and image: https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rts/the-original-dawn-of-war-games-have-109-new-steam-achievements-after-20-years-if-you-have-the-definitive-edition-at-least/
