Dawn of War 3, the title imitates intense skirmish atmosphere you will be facing in the Warhammer universe. This time there is more to think of. The predecessor was focused more on statistics of units, how well you can upgrade them and dives into the battle to capture victory. This time exploiting micro management, Dawn of War 3 demands strategy and a combine skill to develop base, set the right units of army faction and keeping a watch that no one infiltrate your area.
If you are a RTS fan, then Dawn of War 3 at the beginning will serve you a straight forward battle scenario, it won’t push you into stories and cinematic, instead it lands directly on the battle ground. I have divided this game into three major sections, first the army, second the base and third the strategy. Having a good understanding of these three sections will turn you to a pro in no time. The army is further subdivided into three factions with their respective captains who own special abilities and powers. Deploying them in the right manner is the crux of game mechanics, capturing more and more points, establishing your base to deliver support, etc are next.
Dawn of War 3 focus more on multiplayer, single player is just a pinch of entertainment enough to teach you new things introduced first time in it. For novice the single player campaign against AI will allow them to understand everything.
Gameplay:
Dawn of War 3 is less complicated, those who are new to RTS will take some time to figure out the internal elements, later you have to keep moving with your faction, establish base, and conquer lands in a classic manner. The characters own some super abilities that give an instant power boost to slam a horde of enemies. Dawn of War 3 is entirely about building a strong army, setting up a base that can feed soldiers and heal them and acquire flags.
The campaign mode is the first thing I would recommend you to start with. When I started playing I found that this game does not demand much efforts in terms of controls and navigation, this reduces the competitive gameplay a bit. Click, Click and the soldiers are ready, after having enough points in your pocket you also have access to locked content. The codex part of game menu will give you all details about the internal elements.
RTS Mechanism:
RTS demands a well managed environment, the screen UI of Dawn of War 3 is capable enough to hold all elements in one place, you have your structure units on bottom left, the captains on the left center and doctrines on the right center, etc. There are three slots to divide the units and using the controls, you can deploy them on different target. Later after having enough points you can access to the giant robots that gives you an un-competitive edge over the enemies. The map offers simple navigation to locate targets, well it is not much surprising for me. The best thing to play well is to learn the keyboard controls. It will help you to instantly gather the entire unit towards one target, deploy super ability, select units, infantry, etc. For the multiplayer you have a single model to choose and begin, if there could be a segregation of different mode that can led players to choose what they want to play can make this game more impressive.
Graphics:
Dawn of War 3 graphics are not up to the mark, if you load too many units the screen is completely consumed by tiny looking soldiers. The quality is nice on high graphics, on low and mid I had not enjoyed it much. A major role is played by the HUD that allows you to manage a massive army. They are at the bottom left listed that help you to locate them and call them back for a health restoration. If you love customization then Dawn of War 3 has an entirely dedicated section for you. You can customize the look of your soldiers to make them unique in multiplayer battle. The super abilities of captains add some intense graphic on the battle field. But you cannot just recall them all the time. Overall you can play it well, but having a decent wide screen monitor is what I recommend for such games.
Verdict:
Leaving the graphic aside, Dawn of 3 is a successful attempt to introduce pure RTS gameplay for players. Long campaigns, give you hours of mass battle. The game is also challenging and quiet competitive in the multiplayer environment. However it won’t be impressive for everyone. If you had played Halo Wars 2, then Dawn of 3 is a good change for the time. We see a few pack of RTS title make their way every year, among which Dawn of War 3 is a recommended game from our side.