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Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War: Dark Crusade

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Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War:
Dark Crusade
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War: Dark Crusade cover
Developers
Relic Entertainment
GOG.com General Arcade[1]
Publishers
2006-2013 THQ
2013-present Sega
Release dates
Windows October 9, 2006
Reception
Metacritic 87
Taxonomy
Monetization One-time game purchase
Modes Singleplayer, Multiplayer
Pacing Real-time, Turn-based
Perspectives Bird's-eye view
Controls Multiple select, Point and select
Genres RTS, TBS
Themes Sci-fi
Series Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War: Dark Crusade on HowLongToBeat
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War: Dark Crusade on IGDB
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War: Dark Crusade guide on StrategyWiki
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War: Dark Crusade on MobyGames
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War: Dark Crusade on Wikipedia
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War
Subseries of Warhammer 40,000
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War 2004
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War: Dark Crusade 2006
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War: Soulstorm 2008
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II 2009
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II: Chaos Rising 2010
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II: Retribution 2011
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War III 2017

Warnings

GameSpy online services have been shut down (see Network for solutions).

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War: Dark Crusade is the second expansion pack for the 2004 real-time strategy game Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War, and the first one which is standalone. It includes a turn-based campaign on a strategic map, as well as two new playable factions - the Necrons and the Tau.

Despite the main content being standalone, in order to play as the original playable factions (Space Marines, Chaos Space Marines, Eldar, Orks) in multiplayer, the base game needs to be installed on the same machine (if using retail versions) or owned on the same Steam account. The same is valid for playing the Imperial Guard - the Winter Assault needs to be additionally owned.

The game received two patches in its original support cycle.

On May 22, 2014, Dawn of War and its expansions were migrated from GameSpy to Steamworks-based multiplayer servers, but lost LAN functionality in the process.[2] The GOG.com release from May 25, 2023 uses GOG Galaxy for multiplayer, but is not cross-compatible with Steam users.

Modifications and saved games can be used across the fully patched retail, Steam and GOG.com versions.

General information

Lexicanum - A huge wiki for the Warhammer 40,000 series
Dawn of War Wiki
GOG.com Community Discussions for game series
GOG.com Support Page
Steam Community Discussions

Availability

Source DRM Notes Keys OS
Retail
Disc check (requires the CD/DVD in the drive to play)
CD key
SecuROM 7 DRM.
Icon overlay.png
Windows
Gamesplanet logo.svg
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Master Collection.
Windows
GOG.com
DRM-free
Master Collection; bundled with Game of the Year Edition, Winter Assault, and Soulstorm.
Windows
Humble Store
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Master Collection also available.
Windows
Steam
Icon overlay.png
Master Collection also available.
Windows
Games for Windows Marketplace (unavailable)
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[3]
Windows
A free demo version is available from GameFront.
Owners of retail copies can request a free Steam key from SEGA's UK support service.[4]
To unlock the original races for multiplayer, Dawn of War (and Winter Assault if desired) must be installed (retail version) or merely owned on the same Steam account (Steam version) to prompt unlocking.
In the GOG.com version, all races are unlocked in multiplayer by default.

Essential improvements

Patches

  • Patch 1.20 is the latest official patch for the retail version of the game, and requires patch 1.11 to be installed first.
  • The Steam and GOG.com versions are on version 1.30, which is equivalent to 1.20 in terms of balance and gameplay - the only difference being Steamworks/Galaxy multiplayer used instead of GameSpy and LAN options.

Skip intro videos

Use the -nomovies command line argument[citation needed]

Game data

Configuration file(s) location

System Location
Windows <path-to-game>\Local.ini[Note 1]
Steam Play (Linux) <Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/4580/pfx/[Note 2]

Save game data location

System Location
Windows <path-to-game>\Profiles\Profile*\dxp2\Singleplayer\SaveGames\[Note 1]
Steam Play (Linux) <Steam-folder>/steamapps/compatdata/4580/pfx/[Note 2]

Save game cloud syncing

System Native Notes
GOG Galaxy
Steam Cloud

Video

In-game video settings.
In-game video settings.

Graphics feature State WSGF Notes
Widescreen resolution
Native Vert- support was added with this expansion. HUD will stretch.
Multi-monitor
Not recommended despite function. If forced, HUD and main view are divided across screens.
Ultra-widescreen
HUD will stretch.
4K Ultra HD
Field of view (FOV)
Windowed
Borderless fullscreen windowed
Anisotropic filtering (AF)
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Anti-aliasing (AA)
Vertical sync (Vsync)
60 FPS and 120+ FPS
High dynamic range display (HDR)
See the glossary page for potential alternatives.

Input

In-game control settings.
In-game control settings.

Keyboard and mouse State Notes
Remapping
See the glossary page for potential workarounds.
Mouse acceleration
Mouse sensitivity
Can adjust scroll speed.
Mouse input in menus
Mouse Y-axis inversion
Cursor-based game.
Can invert pan when holding mouse button, but also affects x-axis.
Controller
Controller support
Controller types

Audio

In-game audio settings.
In-game audio settings.

Audio feature State Notes
Separate volume controls
Ambient, effects, voice, music
Surround sound
Subtitles
Closed captions
Mute on focus lost
Royalty free audio

Localizations

Language UI Audio Sub Notes
English
French
German
Intro video is censored; this version of the intro was later brought to the Steam and GOG.com versions internationally.
Hungarian
Fan translation.
Italian
Japanese
Fan translation.
Polish
Local retail version only, download
Russian
Local retail version only.
Spanish

Network

Multiplayer types

Type Native Players Notes
LAN play
8 Versus
Removed from the Steam and GOG.com versions.[5]
Online play
8 Versus
The official GameSpy service has been shut down; Steam version has been updated with Steamworks support, while GOG.com uses Galaxy multiplayer. Steam and GOG Galaxy users can see each other, but not join each other's games.

Connection types

Type Native Notes
Matchmaking
Peer-to-peer
Dedicated
Self-hosting
Direct IP
Removed from the Steam and GOG.com versions.[5]

Issues fixed

Spooge Driver Not Found

Edit configuration file[6]
  1. Go into <path-to-game>\Drivers
  2. Open spdx9_config.txt
  3. Scroll down to the used video card.
  4. Find the allowdevice 0 lines.
  5. Change the 0 to 1 on all the allowdevice 0 lines.
  6. Save the changes and run the game.

Other information

API

Technical specs Supported Notes
Direct3D 9.0b
Executable 32-bit 64-bit Notes
Windows

Middleware

Middleware Notes
Multiplayer GameSpy, Steamworks, GOG Galaxy GameSpy in non-Steam versions only.

Mods

Dawn of War has a "Game Manager", enabling switching between mods very easy.
In general, mods work for both the patched retail (1.2) and Steam (1.3) versions of the game.
It is possible to run multiple modifications at once. For instructions, see here.

Dawn of War Professional

ModDB page
Gameplay and balance mod which significantly changes the game
Restores upgrades that were removed in expansions and includes additional content created by the community. All units are designed to play a role until late game.

System requirements

Windows
Minimum Recommended
Operating system (OS) 98, 2000, ME, XP
Processor (CPU) 1.4 GHz Intel Pentium III or AMD Athlon XP processor
System memory (RAM) 256 MB
Hard disk drive (HDD) 4.5 GB
Video card (GPU) 32 MB of VRAM
DirectX 9.0b compatible


Notes

  1. 1.0 1.1 When running this game without elevated privileges (Run as administrator option), write operations against a location below %PROGRAMFILES%, %PROGRAMDATA%, or %WINDIR% might be redirected to %LOCALAPPDATA%\VirtualStore on Windows Vista and later (more details).
  2. 2.0 2.1 File/folder structure within this directory reflects the path(s) listed for Windows and/or Steam game data (use Wine regedit to access Windows registry paths). Games with Steam Cloud support may store data in ~/.steam/steam/userdata/<user-id>/4580/ in addition to or instead of this directory. The app ID (4580) may differ in some cases. Treat backslashes as forward slashes. See the glossary page for details.

References