Now drop them into a science fiction universe so that the Orks and Eldar and the forces of Chaos battle it out using depleted uranium shells, spaceships, and laser weapons. Imagine standard fantasy tropes like orcs and elves and wizards and demons. If you're unfamiliar with the Warhammer 40,000 universe, here's a quick-and-dirty summary.
While Dawn of War doesn't break any new ground for the RTS genre, it is, nonetheless, a supremely polished and well-balanced example of it, a credit to both the development team, and a laurel wreath for the license it bears. Relic Entertainment is known for its original Homeworld, a fully 3D, deep-space real-time strategy game, as well as its more traditional RTS, Impossible Creatures. Like all Warhammer 40,000 games, Dawn of War is set in the futuristic fantasy universe of Game Workshop's tabletop war game, which first became popular in the late 1980s. Following Warhammer 40,000: Fire Warrior, this is the second game based on the franchise to be published by THQ. Visit a dark, distant, gothic future and take real-time command of powerful armies to wage intense, tactical battles in the name of freedom or justice.
