Hi everyone!
If you watched the recent PC Gamer Most Wanted showcase, you’ll have already seen our brand new Story Trailer for Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War IV! After giving you just a taste of what to expect from the four faction campaigns in our story, we wanted to share a little more detail about what all this means for the game.

Our Story Trailer opens with a look at how the Blood Ravens, under Captain Cyrus and Chief Librarian Jonah Orion, have arrived in orbit over Kronus. Travelling to recruit new aspirants to the ranks of their Chapter, they instead find themselves ambushed by Warboss Gorgutz and his ferocious Orks.

After an intense orbital fight, both factions find themselves planetside. It’s here that the Beastboss Guzcutta - our second Ork Commander - is already hunting the human forces on the surface. Elsewhere on Kronus, the Adeptus Mechanicus are beginning to dive deep into the planet’s secrets, while the Necrons slowly awaken to this unwelcome intrusion.

With the Space Marines and Astra Militarum forces beset on all sides, we see the Dark Angels make a critical intervention. That’s correct, for the first time in Dawn of War history, you’ll be able to play as not just one but two Space Marines Chapters in the campaign. We want to tread very carefully around spoilers in this post, so let’s just say that when the call for aid goes out, it’s the Dark Angels who respond, bringing formidable reinforcements to the battlefield.

Their arrival presents you with a key strategic choice: do you control the mysterious Blood Ravens who specialise in flexible strategic combat, or the secretive Dark Angels with their penchant for shock and awe tactics? Both are similar in their fighting ability, but one thing the Dark Angels have is access to Elite units like the Deathwing and the Ravenwing. While the former provides a slow but punishing tactical advantage in battle, the latter enables devastating hit-and-run tactics.

As the two Chapters share many of the same units, it’s the Commanders who make the biggest difference to gameplay. Under the command of Company Master Astoran who has donned his sacred Terminator Armour, the legendary Deathwing provides a formidable frontline bulwark, dismantling heavy units with their power fists. Chaplain Ezrael, alongside the Ravenwing, use their bikes to deliver devastating lightning strikes across the battlefield.

These Dark Angels Commanders weren’t the only new units showcased in our recent trailer either. We were thrilled to be able to give you an early glimpse of Lion El’Jonson, who represents the very first playable Warhammer 40,000 Primarch to appear in any video game!

We’re honoured and excited to be able to create this unique experience for Dawn of War IV, and hope to authentically represent the power of a Primarch on the battlefield.. Because of this, you can expect The Lion to have a small but pivotal role in the battle for Kronus, rather than being playable in every mission.

As for how we’re telling that story, we’re using a few different methods depending on what we think will serve the game best at any given time.

First of all, each of the four faction campaigns kicks off with a high quality, cinematic CGI cutscene - you’ve already had a glimpse of these in our announcement and story trailers. These are designed to set up the faction, introduce a couple of key units, and give you a really epic sense of what’s coming your way. These awesome intros are then supported further with high-quality in-engine cutscenes.

Then we like to use what we call world map dialogues. When you’re choosing between missions, significant story figures will talk to each other and help you understand the impact of your decisions. Finally, in any given mission itself, units and Commanders will talk to one another as events unfold.

By combining all of these storytelling tools together, we think we’ve built a collection of campaigns that know exactly when to wow you, and when to keep the story moving with a lighter touch, leaving you immersed in the strategic challenge in front of you.

Thanks for reading, and we hope our latest trailer has whet your appetite for the sizzling story we’re busy cooking up! We’ll have more updates for you in the weeks and months to come, so make sure you follow us - and don’t forget to add Dawn of War IV to your wishlist if you haven’t done so already.

Elliott Verbiest and Jan Theysen from KING Art Games are back for another round of our Developer AMA as we chat all things story related and more! Find out more over on our official Discord! 

[discord.gg]