Dawn of War 4 Has the Potential to Be the Best Warhammer 40,000 Game Ever

There is a special thrill in a real-time strategy game when your base-building and army-management systems finally mesh, and you sweep across the map to crush the enemy in one furious charge. The Orks in Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War 4 seem designed for exactly that playstyle. They grow stronger with every structure you raise, every unit you spawn, and every foe you kill during a match.

Filling the meter to trigger Waaagh! stratagems (yes, that is the real name of the mechanic) and flooding the battlefield with hordes of units was some of the most fun I’ve had with a game this year. It doesn’t surprise me that the developers point players toward this campaign first. It works as an excellent crash course in what is shaping up to be a superb RTS, and possibly the definitive Warhammer 40,000 game.

Although the series has changed hands, with King Art and Deep Silver now in charge instead of Relic Entertainment, it hasn’t missed a beat in delivering a rich, full-featured Warhammer 40,000 experience in RTS form. I’ve only scratched the surface of what Dawn of War 4 offers, yet my expectations are already high for it to be one of the franchise’s standout releases as the year closes.

My preview build covered a generous portion of the game, including the Prologue and two of the four campaigns. In the prologue, I sampled the Space Marines and the Astra Militarum before moving on to the Orks and the Adeptus Mechanicus. All four factions are locked in a struggle over the planet Kronus, each with its own selfish motives. The story captures the essence of Warhammer 40,000: vast in scale, savage and brutal, and overwhelming in a way that tempts you to dig deeper into the lore. Gameplay rules in an RTS, but I suspect players will be pleased with the narrative too.

Moment to moment, Dawn of War 4 ticks every box you’d expect from the genre. Each faction fundamentally wants to expand its base, harvest resources, produce units, and then outmaneuver its rivals on the battlefield. A thorough tutorial in the prologue got me comfortable with the basics. By the time the campaigns began, I could appreciate how each faction puts its own spin on that core formula.

The Orks, for instance, thrive on constructing and spawning units at speed. The Adeptus Mechanicus, by contrast, encourage a more defensive approach through their Void Shield mechanic and a wide selection of vehicles. I’ll need more time to understand the nuances of every faction, but the Orks are already my clear favorite.

Image: Deep Silver

Real-time strategy can feel daunting, since you’re juggling so many units and structures at once, but I found Dawn of War 4 pleasantly approachable. Every time a new mechanic appears, the game pauses to walk you through it thoroughly. Units can also be set to use their skills and abilities automatically, which frees you to concentrate on the bigger picture instead of micromanaging each soldier. And if individual skirmishes matter to you, you can zoom in close enough to follow the action clearly.

Beyond the campaigns, I spent time in Skirmish mode, a player-versus-AI option that lets you tweak the mission, the map, and other parameters that affect how a match plays out. Some of my favorite licensed games, such as Star Wars Battlefront 2 and Dragon Ball Sparking! Zero, shine brightest when they act as playful sandboxes for their universes. Skirmish mode fills that role perfectly here.

Between Skirmish and other systems I’m not yet able to discuss, Dawn of War 4 looks set to offer the same sandbox appeal across many corners of the Warhammer 40,000 universe. That alone would earn a recommendation, and four full campaigns sit on top of it.

King Art’s earlier work on RTS titles like 2020’s Iron Harvest clearly pays off here. The genre has been in a rut lately, with games like Stormgate failing to capture the following that StarCraft and Dawn of War enjoyed decades ago. Even so, it has been a long time since we’ve seen an RTS this content-rich and polished, and I can imagine it rekindling enthusiasm for the genre.

With so many Warhammer 40,000 games arriving every year, it’s hard to know which deserve your time and which are better left to devoted fans and loremasters. The Dawn of War games rank among the best to carry the Warhammer 40,000 name, and my hands-on time suggests Dawn of War 4 will live up to that legacy.

While Dawn of War 4 is packed with detail and content to satisfy the hardcore fan base, it’s equally worth a look if you want an RTS that is approachable yet satisfyingly deep. It’s exactly the shot in the arm the genre needs.

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War 4 launches for Windows PC on Dec. 3.

Source: Polygon