Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War 4 – First impression of a series of veterans
Blog Andrew Joseph 20 Aug , 2025 0
Waving the thunder of boulders, repelling orc invasion and unique red and white crow armor, brought me back to the original trailer for Dawn of War, which made me a real-time Warhammer 40k fan 20 years ago. It is the first game in the series that is the jump point at the upcoming Game 4 Dawn. A lot has changed, but a lot of things remain the same, bringing bigger battles and bigger graphics into the classic harvest RTS, which are the same parts as spectacle and tactics. I played the 1-2 hour demo several times and it felt like the dark crusaders never left.
We heard that the last time this franchise was in 2018, when Relic ended support for the split dawn of War 3, with the next chapter deployed under a different master’s degree. King Art Games is the developer of Alt-History Dieselpunk RTS Iron Harvest, which occupies the banner and I can definitely see the through-line between the large, footstep robots in the game and the classic Fearless and Titans. King Art also boosts the movie slaughter by adding a synchronized animated melee system that simulates scratches between any two of dozen units.
Like the latest version of the recent tabletop game, Dawn of War leaped 200 years into the 41st Millennium, the Eye of Terror opens and separates the empire of humanity. Blood Crow is a scattered and troubled chapter trying to reintegrate itself, one of four…half playable factions. Their lineup reflects the latest Space Ocean Code, with Primaris intercessors and Blade Guard veterans leading the charge. Older, tracking pillars such as rhino and predators have been replaced with high-tech repulsion vehicles. But some classic favorites (such as the Fearless and Terminator) stay around.
The Space Marines focus on small elite squads that are expensive to build and reinforce, but most of the opponents are overweight. Their buildings are large and expensive, and the defensive structure is completely automated rather than manned. In fact, they barely pay attention to cover, which is an adjustment to the recent replay of War 2. However, they do have a lot of tactical flexibility, and most infantry squads are trained into a range of strategic reserves by putting the pod anywhere you have vision. The drip pods are even armed and will remain on the map in the form of light defensive turrets until they are destroyed.
Enemy of the Empire
Another ubiquitous war in the first trailer Orks is the second faction and the main enemy in the demo I played. They have more combat styles, although there are some units like Meganobz wearing petroleum-fueled powered armor that can be toes with the Space Marines. Their buildings are cheap, and everyone has some kind of little guy with machine guns on it, so the production structure that vomits on the map is also how you create a defensive position. The animation is especially thematic and entertaining, as it does look like a huge pile of scraps that radiates unceremoniously in the atmosphere.
Of course, Orks got Waaagh too! Mechanics who enable them to earn powerful deployable strategies to cause all kinds of damage.
However, just as I was about to master the Orks, another hostile match, like the Terminator-like Necromancer, surprised me with one of my control points. At the end of Dawn in Battle 3, but never fully realized, they earned a huge reward with the Monolith Super unit that could twist to its position in the new squad. For balance reasons, the Necromancer cannot simply recover when they are killed like them in a tabletop game. But they did get a special building called the Resurrection Room, which allows for free rebirth of a certain number of destroyed squads.
Their role is most different from other factions in that they do not pay special attention to the application and power capture points dotted around the map. Instead, their economy relies on spreading their matrix – like weird, networked Zerg forms, emanating from StarCraft – awarding bonuses to their units during battles and providing them with resources, more maps covering the maps in them.
A firm allies
Thanks to my split attention, barely defeating the invasion of the Death and being backed by the orcs, who would reach the critical moment, join the Bloody Crows and turn the tide of the battle? Do you believe this is a brand new faction in the Dawn of War series? The final of four comprehensive multiplayer factions is Adeptus Mechanicus, their robot waiter and an impressive, good war machine.
Admech has unique abilities to treat enemy contact as spots of color, even in the fog of war, relative to their size and power, so it is almost impossible to surprise them. Their buildings are also networked, providing them with augmentation of powerful enhanced production within the range of network nodes, which may make them vulnerable to surgical strikes that cut off connections. Their super unit is the Imperial Knight of Titanic, which does show the scale of the dawn of War 4, next to the trampled Pondie.
I did talk about four and a half factions. The Imperial Guards attended the mission I participated as an ally of AI control, despite the limited unit lineup. They will also be playable in campaign tutorial missions, but not in multiplayer games. At least not yet.
The other four factions will run their own campaigns on the branch’s story path, starting with Dawn of War: The Dark Crusade expansion, bringing us back to Kronus. The story features over 40 minutes of CGI cutscenes in all factions, written by prolific black library author John French, author of the recent Arriman novel.
Dawn of War 4 will also bring back the last popular standalone mode of Dawn of War 2, although somehow described as hero-centric and “less MOBA-like” with more focus on classic RTS mechanics, such as Dawn of War 1. The co-op is on the Slate too, and there is a wise “painter” option on the main menu. The developers aren't ready to talk about this, but tell me their goal is to include everything that previous war games have in terms of customization and then add more.
Of course I didn't expect a new dawn of war soon, rather than a studio other than a relic. But from a little bit I've played it, it seems King Art Game can understand this task. As the dawn of War 2, I miss the importance of cover and movement tactics. But the dawn of the Fourth War still left a big impression on people. I can't wait for the excavation next year.