Relic Entertainment has been fairly busy with the announcement last year that it would be developing Age of Empires 4 for Microsoft. Unfortunately, that means the future of Warhammer: Dawn of War 3 isn’t to be. The studio has announced that it will be dropping support for Dawn of War 3, which released in April 2017, to focus on “other project within our portfolio.”
Issuing a statement through publisher Sega to Eurogamer, Relic stated that, “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 under-performs, 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.”
While efforts were made to improve the game, many fans were left disappointed with the shift to more MOBA-like elements. The lack of any substantial new features like new races (the base game only had three) and additional campaign DLC is even more understandable now given the lack of players.
That being said, the franchise isn’t dead by a long shot and Relic does have other projects in the pipeline. Along with Age of Empires 4, it will be working on an unannounced project. Time will tell what this is. In the meantime, let us know your thoughts on Dawn of War 3 support being dropped.