Multiplayer lives on in the dark future of the 41st Millennium.
SEGA and Relic have updated Dawn of War to get multiplayer matchmaking working through Steam. Previously, the title (and its expansions) had used the soon to be defunct GameSpy for matchmaking. Rather than leave the game with no multiplayer, Relic has taken action.
The process of moving Dawn of War II over to Steam servers (and away from Games for Windows Live) is also said to be “in progress,” with more details promised soon. Relic says it has done this to keep a “consistent multiplayer experience across the entire portfolio.”
In effect, all titles in the Dawn of War series are being updated to use the same matchmaking and backend developed for Company of Heroes 2. All matchmaking and log-ins will, in future, go through Steam.
Relic warns that there will likely be short-term technical issues with the new set-up. “Recreating the multiplayer infrastructure for seven titles is no small feat, and there will be bugs,” the post states. But with GameSpy about to shut down entirely, Relic felt it would be best to get these updates out in an attempt to avoid too much interruption to multiplayer.
Obviously, the company says it will be tackling those bugs and getting everything running as smoothly as possible when it can.
There’s also a tantilising hint that SEGA might be looking to continue the Dawn of War series:
This update – and continued further support for DoW and DoW2 – is a big step for us at Relic. It’s a concrete signal of support for the Dawn of War franchise from us and from SEGA as a whole. Ever since SEGA acquired Relic we’ve been working on continued support for the Dawn of War back catalogue.
A long-shot perhaps, but that “signal of support for the Dawn of War franchise” sounds like it could extend further than updates for the older games.
