Relic Entertainment has officially dropped its continued support of Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War 3, making way for Age of Empires 4 and other projects.
Launched in April 2017, Dawn of War 3 achieved a dedicated player base though failed to reach a wider audience. Now, Relic is being forced to move away from the game in order to put its focus on projects it believes will have a longer shelf life.
Citing Dawn of War 3 failing to hit its targets as its reasoning for leaving the game behind, Relic released the following statement (via Eurogamer):
“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 underperforms, 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.”
It’s sad news for Dawn of War 3‘s players, though it’s unsurprising that Relic is opting to cut the cord. According to SteamSpy, the game’s number of concurrent players runs between 300 – 500, with it reaching a peak of less than 500 yesterday.
It’s unclear if Relic plans to shut down Dawn of War 3‘s servers, with the game potentially carrying on albeit without the release of new content. Warhammer 40,000 fans will hope that will be the case, though as servers cost money to maintain, Relic and publisher Sega could well decide to put its finances into other, more advantageous projects.
