One of the low-key most exciting changes in Dawn of War: Definitive Edition is the shift to a 64-bit exe, which makes it a more stable platform for modding. Dawn of War is beloved for its sense of scale, and being able to expand that even further with massive numbers of enemies on screen and even more factions is the promise of mods like Unification.
If you’re all keyed-up to install Unification right away, however, maybe hold off on that a minute. You might encounter a few problems, like not being able to pan the screen left or right with the cursor, or graphical issues with the Unification campaign map. Over on the Unification Discord, a modder called Kekoulis, Shogun of Unification, has explained the team is waiting for the Definitive Edition to be patched before releasing an update for the mod.
The schedule for that has moved forward, however. Relic had communicated that the Definitive Edition’s second patch, planned for September, would be the one to wait for. Now it’s looking like the first major patch will include the fixes modders are waiting on, “So we will wait for that to test and see if we can release earlier than the 2nd major patch”, Kekoulis writes. “We have already made some progress on updating the UI as well as the rest of the elements, so the patch is proceeding as planned.”
Back in the day, my preferred wide-scale overhaul for Dawn of War was the Ultimate Apocalypse mod, which is also having some issues with the Definitive Edition—in particular with the UI. Its maps also look rough compared to the upscaled originals. Fortunately the team currently in charge of that mod is also working on a compatibility update.
The same can’t be said for the Crucible mod. Its creators have put together a lengthy document detailing their issues with the Definitive Edition, and said on their Discord that, “Right now there are only a few minor positives to moving to DE, and multiple major negatives, so on balance we will continue modding legacy DOW until DE is up to scratch.”
Finally, since apparently enough people have been asking the Unification team about the recently announced Dawn of War 4 that they’ve had to post a reply. Kekoulis, Shogun of Unification, has made it plain they won’t be adapting Unification to the next game in the series. “Aside from the fact we do not even know the state of that game and how it will be, you are asking us to redo 10+ years worth of work in a new game,” Kekoulis writes, “which will be less known and will have different aspects. The home of Unification is DOW1, especially with DE.”
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