A big cinematic story trailer has been released for Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War IV, revealing some of the alien races that you’ll battle and a surprise Space Marine team-up in the fight for the future of the planet Kronus.
The planet Kronus was the setting for the second DLC campaign for the original Dawn of War game, and this leads us back to battling some familiar foes. Co-written by Black Library author John French, the story sees Kronus beset by an Ork infestation, now with two rival Ork Warbosses vying for power, while the Necrons are emerging from their tombs beneath the surface, as well as with an invasion fleet appearing above.
That’s a lot for a Space Marine Chapter to deal with, as formidable as they all are, so it’s a good thing that they’ll be getting a hand. The Adeptus Mechanicus will feature in the game, and the Dark Angels are also turning to to ally themselves with the Blood Ravens. You’ll get to play as both chapters, with Company Master Astoran and Chaplain Ezrael leading the Dark Angels into the fray. They’ve also teased that Dark Angels Primarch Lion El’Jonson could be playable at some point in the campaign, which would be a landmark moment for 40K in general, not just video games!
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War IV has been entrusted to Iron Harvest developer King Art Games and publisher Deep Silver. It’s a new leaf for the franchise, which was created by Relic Entertainment way back in 2004 and defined a new style of real time strategy with less focus on resource gathering and base building, and more on controlling the map and battlefield. Dawn of War enjoyed a good few expansions before Dawn of War 2 explored a more tactical approach in 2009, and Dawn of War 3 sought to blend them all together.
The interest in having King Art work on Dawn of War IV was organised by Games Workshop some time before Iron Harvest’s release in 2020. It’s not known if GW initially wanted to stick with Relic, but that time frame would have been around the time that Relic was focussed on Age of Empires IV and later Company of Heroes 3. Relic has since gone through the tumult of layoffs while under Sega’s ownership in 2023, and then independence with an investor buyout in 2024. They had plenty of things going on, in other words, but King Art had proven themselves with their steampunk RTS and could be great new stewards for this series. We look forward to seeing more in the run up to its 2026 release.
Source: Warhammer Community
