Dawn of War 3 Title

Want to play Dawn of War 3 Early? Here’s how you get in the Beta.

Relic is rolling out an open beta for Dawn of War 3’s Multiplayer. Want to try the game early? Here’s how to do it.

Dawn of War 3 game seems like a return to form for Relic after the somewhat divisive Dawn of War 2. While the new game seems to still have a place for Hero units to sweep through the battlefield, there’s a bigger focus on larger scale fights, larger scale units and more of what made Dawn of War One excellent.

So what can you expect from the Beta? According to Relic:

You will have access to all three of the game’s factions – Space Marines, Eldar, and Orks – and a selection of powerful elite heroes for each. The Open Beta will also include a number of Doctrines so you can begin to experiment in equipping your army for different strategic scenarios, and the Army Painter to customize the way they look. You can compete against other players in custom or auto-matched battles with a choice of three different maps.

There’s a lot going on there, so let’s break it down. We know that all three factions will be playing slightly differently, and that the game’s campaign is supposed to feature playing all three races. The elite heroes seem to be the equivalent of the units in Dawn of War two. Special powered units designed to be directly micro managed. Then you’ve got the rest of your army that plays more like the swarm of huge units in Dawn of War 1.
The Doctrines system for Dawn of War 3 appears to be a translation of the Warlord mechanics for the tabletop game, letting you slightly customise your army to allow for different tactics and play styles. In theory, this would be a great idea and allow for differences in the inevitable Marine on Marine games. There’s a lot to look forward to, and by signing up here you’ll get a chance to try the game out from 10am PST April 21st to 10am PST April 24th.

Looking for how the game will change before launch? Here’s how the beta will differ from the main game.

Dawn of War 3 Beta gameplay