Dawn of War multiplayer migrating to Steam in light of impending GameSpy shutdown

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War and its expansions, as well as Dawn of War 2 and its Chaos Rising expansion, are being migrated over to Steam in order to save multiplayer, design lead Philippe Boulle recently announced.

The news comes as a result of GameSpy's shutdown May 31; games that rely on on the service for functions such as matchmaking and leaderboards must either move or lose online multiplayer capabilities.

According to Boulle, a lack of multiplayer for Dawn of War and its expansions is "not an outcome anyone at Relic would want to see." The game has already undergone a major update to ensure multiplayer gameplay would be preserved. Dawn of War 2's migration is also currently in progress.

"All titles in the franchise are being updated to use the same matchmaking and backend developed for Company of Heroes 2," Boulle wrote. "This will not only mean multiplayer can continue on these titles, but the matchmaking experience will be improved. Matchmaking/login and so on will thus all be through Steam."

The new setup will likely include technical issues and bugs, though Relic is "committed" to enabling full Steam functions, he added.

"This update — and continued further support for DoW and DoW2 — is a big step for us at Relic," Boulle wrote. "It's a concrete signal of support for the Dawn of War franchise from us and from Sega as a whole."