Dawn of War 3 removes Skulls, unlocks doctrines & elites

Because weird unlock systems are near-mandatory these days, Warhammer 40000: Dawn of War 3 [official site] initially required players to unlock special units and perks by spending a 'Skulls' currency earned by playing. It introduced a load of faff and grind that stopped people playing with the full spectrum of options, in return for the minor fleeting joy of unlocking shiny new bits. A poor trade-off. Well, that's gone. Last week, Relic removed Skulls and unlocked their unlocks for everyone.

"After listening to how fans felt about the Skull system, and watching how players interacted with it in-game, we've decided to unlock all Elites and doctrines for everyone," Relic said.

Skulls were among the faff Fraser Brown criticised in our Dawn of War 3 review, which broadly liked the multiplayer but not the campaign.

Relic explained their thinking in Tuesday's patch notes:

"We had intended for the Skull system to introduce pacing to the multiplayer experience, but we didn't want this to come at the cost of barring advanced play styles to those ready to tackle them. You'll still need to unlock Elite level rewards as well as those gained from campaign progress, but this will be a lot easier with an expanded arsenal of Elites at your command!"

That's another step back (and forward), not the first to revert to earlier ways. Earlier this year, Relic added new multiplayer modes more like earlier games.

Speaking of Elites, the new Ironclad Dreadnought will arrive in October's patch.

Ta for flagging this up, PCGamesN.