Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War IV has a release date, fresh from the Warhammer Skulls 2026 showcase. And while we know the base game will be released this September, we also know what the roadmap of post-launch content and DLC for the following nine months looks like. The headline here is the addition of a fifth playable faction via a campaign expansion, but there’s much more to look forward to.
To coincide with the release date announcement, I sat down for an interview with King Art Games creative director Jan Theysen and senior game designer Elliott Verbiest to dig into the roadmap, try my best to get juicy lore details, and ask about that fifth playable faction. And check out our roundup of everything announced at Warhammer Skulls 2026 to find out more on what’s coming down the line.
IGN: How is Dawn of War IV’s Crusade Mode different from how it worked in previous Dawn of War games?
Jan Theysen: We can’t go into all the details, but what we can definitely tease is that there’s a little bit more to it than, for example, in Dark Crusade. What we make sure is that there is also really relevant gameplay on the World Map part. The Last Crusade mode was basically more or less like, okay, where do you want to play next? It was like, not a lot of gameplay there. And we felt like, okay, this could be more like a board game, where it has its own gameplay there. And so we invested some time and thoughts into that and made sure that even that part alone is fun.
Elliott Verbiest: We wanted to expand a bit more on the meta gameplay that happens. So within the Dark Crusade game mode, it’s mostly like you’re moving pieces around the board, and then you’ve got the Skirmish gameplay in between that keeps it together. And so we’re also looking to add additional gameplay elements to add additional depth to the World Map.
Jan Theysen: We are German, so we do board games, right? Our objective was, we basically said even without the real-time strategy part, there should be fun. Even if you’re not playing the RTS missions, it should still be fun. And that was the goal.
IGN: The story prologue returns to Aurelia, which I think is seared into my memory as it will be for many Dawn of War fans. Why did you decide that was the right place to go back to for the prologue?
Jan Theysen: When we announced that Dawn of War IV, you’re not only playing the Blood Ravens, but also the Dark Angels, people were excited about the Dark Angels, but also, ‘Oh, why can’t I play more of the Blood Ravens?’ And basically we said, ‘Okay, for everybody who’s really all about Blood Ravens, we offer them just more Blood Ravens.’ And also answer maybe some of the questions people will have when they play the main game, which is basically, okay, what is with the rest of the chapter? Where is everybody? This kind of thing. And so we basically said, ‘Okay, let’s make this the prologue to the main game that is all about the Blood Ravens.’ And that is the starting point, and then Aurelia came out of that.
IGN: The natural follow up question is, the prologue is “guided by a legendary commander.” You know who everyone’s going to wonder about. Can you talk a bit about what that means exactly, and who we can expect, because fans will definitely speculate about that one.
Jan Theysen: Well, there is a legendary commander! That is, I think, all we can say at this point.
Elliott Verbiest: I think we’re happy for players to speculate a little longer!
IGN: The Aftermath campaign expansion sounds exciting. The main thing here is adding a fifth faction to the game across all game modes. I’m not expecting you to tell me what that faction is, but do you consider individual Space Marine chapters as their own faction, or are Space Marines overall a faction?
Jan Theysen: For us internally, a faction is Space Marines, and then there are sub-factions; in terms of the Space Marines it’s chapters, in terms of the Orks it’s Ork Clans. But when we say there will be a new faction, then we are talking about a big new thing. Obviously we can’t tell you what it is, but if you look at the history of Dawn of War and ask yourself, what could you expect from a Dawn of War game that maybe isn’t in Dawn of War IV, maybe you’re going in the right direction.
IGN: This roadmap takes us up to spring 2027. Can we expect more DLC after as a year two roadmap?
Jan Theysen: This basically covers the first nine months after launch. After that, hopefully, if the game works well and everybody is excited, hopefully we can do more. But this is the plan we have so far.
IGN: So you’re not saying this is the only new faction that will ever be released for the game? Assuming it’s successful and everyone’s happy and it’s going well, you plan to expand it further?
Jan Theysen: I mean, if there is something that Warhammer 40K has, it’s a lot of factions, right? So we would be very happy to have more of the game.
Elliott Verbiest: Yeah. We’ve no shortage of options here, I think.
IGN: I really enjoyed the last Adeptus Mechanicus gameplay video. I thought that was awesome and suggests you really nailed the feel of that faction as people imagine it from the tabletop. Did it include our first ever look at an Imperial Knight Drop Pod? Because I don’t think I’ve ever seen a model for that or even artwork.
Jan Theysen: Actually, I thought you would be even nerdier and ask about the Ironstrider tiptoeing on the spot! Because that was what I was most happy about that people picked up on it.
With the Knight’s drop pod, we had the question, okay, how do we deliver the Knight to the battlefield? And we received word there might be something like a Knight drop pod that at some point someone designed. And we said, ‘Okay, we want this, give it to us.’ And we are lucky enough to have it in the game. And as you said, it’s like the first time anybody sees it. It’s this huge building. So you don’t build the unit, but what you do is you build this gigantic building and then the building comes down, clears everything in the surrounding area with rockets, lands, and then the Knight comes out, but the building also remains. So now you have this huge tower there that can help you. We took it and ran with it.
IGN: So I’m understanding correctly, you had a reference point for the Imperial Knight Drop Pod?
Jan Theysen: Basically we talked to Games Workshop, how can we deliver this thing? And they came back and said, ‘Well… there is this idea…” And we took it and ran with it.
IGN: You must be delighted that fans are picking up on all these little details in gameplay trailers. It must be rewarding for you to see Warhammer 40,000 fans with those positive comments.
Jan Theysen: I mean, absolutely, right? You put so much time and energy into this and sometimes you wonder, will anybody ever see this, or does anybody care about this? And when people do, it’s great because then you feel like, ‘Okay, it was worth it.’
That is maybe something that not all the players are aware of. If you create an asset for a game like this, you spend days and weeks with this asset, right? So at the end, an artist knows every nook and cranny of the whole thing. And so if you put something in there and people recognize it and say, ‘Hey, that’s cool,” then people run through the office very happy.
Elliott Verbiest: And that’s exactly what we’re trying to do here with Dawn of War IV, is create that authentic Warhammer 40K experience, right? Because there are so many players who are looking for that kind of detail, and I think seeing such a positive reaction to the Ironstriders was a really good sign for us that we’re on the right path with that, and that, okay, this is what people are looking for and this is what they’re delighted with, and that’s what we’re delighted with.
IGN: Is there more pressure to get the tiny details right with a Warhammer 40,000 video game than any other game universe?
Jan Theysen: It might be, but I mean, we never worked on another IP that big, so we can’t really compare it to anything else. I would imagine if you do a Harry Potter game then probably Harry Potter fans are also very particular about the details.
But for me it’s like just an expression of how much people care about it, because they love the world, they think it’s the coolest thing ever. And also if someone has a little bit of information about something and then that’s very important for them and this little thing needs to be in there. Our job is to try to get as many of these things in the game. But in the end, obviously we will miss some things and people will have a field day, but that’s totally fine because again, I think it comes from a place of caring about it.
Elliott Verbiest: A lot of the comments that we saw most recently on the AdMech trailer was the fact that the voiceover narrator is Jonathan Keeble, who is like a very well known audiobook voice actor for a lot of the Warhammer books. So it’s not just within the game itself, within the gameplay and how we display factions and so on, but all the way down to things like the type of voice actors that we bring in for this project. I think there’s a lot of different references and other details that a lot of fans of Warhammer 40K can really appreciate and will look forward to.
IGN: It’s great you have Jonathan Keeble for the trailers, but does he do anything in the game itself?
Jan Theysen: He doesn’t play one of the characters or something like that, but we are at the moment talking about something that he could narrate in the game. So it’s not yet confirmed, but hopefully we can get him because we are fans of him as well, right?
Elliott Verbiest: And we also have several other voice actors on board who are quite well known within the property, also for audiobooks and the like. So we’ll definitely hear a couple more recognizable voices and a couple recognizable names for this game for certain.
IGN: Since we last spoke, Games Workshop has announced a new edition of 40K. Are you mindful of the developments that happen for the tabletop, or does that have no influence on what you’re doing? Do you get any sort of like heads up and then you design things with that new edition in mind? How does it actually work?
Jan Theysen: In general, the RTS is not like a digital version of the tabletop, because it just doesn’t work. It’s a different thing. What we take from the tabletop or from the IP in general is of course the overall feel of a unit and what is the unit for and all of that stuff. But that also doesn’t really change between editions, right? What they do with 11th Edition doesn’t really change what we would do with Dawn of War.
We sometimes get a little bit of a heads up when there are some changes with units or something like that that is relevant for us, but in general, the tabletop rules do not really affect the RTS rules.
Elliott Verbiest: We pay attention to this kind of stuff because we’re interested and we want to know this kind of thing. We want to play it! Of course, we’re excited about this. But these two things are essentially separate. There are things that we’ll get a heads up on if they’re relevant for us, but otherwise they’re fundamentally separate in what they are by nature of the fact that one’s a video game, the other’s a tabletop.
Jan Theysen: Terminators are Terminators in eighth, ninth, 10th, or 11th Edition.
IGN: Also since we last spoke, we have the announcement of Total War: Warhammer 40,000. The games aren’t the same, obviously, but at face value there are clearly some similarities. Do you see there being enough room for both Dawn of War IV and Total War: Warhammer 40,000, and that you can carve out your own fanbase that will be able to support all the DLC ambitions that you have even though this game is also coming out?
Jan Theysen: Yeah, absolutely. We are happy the more good Warhammer 40K games are out there, because the more good games there are the more people care about it, the more people are interested in Warhammer in general. And that also helps Dawn of War. We don’t see them as like direct competition. It’s also not like players play the one game, but not the other. I think many players will probably play both of them. And so for us it’s more like, okay, cool if it’s like a great game and brings more eyes to the franchise, all the better. And of course also we know and like the guys from Creative Assembly. And we want to play the game! So we are just happy that they do something cool with it. And in the end, I think most players will probably enjoy both of them.
Elliott Verbiest: Yeah, definitely a case of rising tide lifts all boats. We’re looking forward to playing it as well!
IGN: Just from a pure gameplay perspective, if you’re just a strategy game fan, what makes Dawn of War IV stand out from the Warhammer 40,000 crowd?
Jan Theysen: It’s the classic RTS gameplay, right? So you have these different levels, right? You have economy, you have strategy and tactical elements. If you want, you can also micro a little bit. But it’s like a lot of things going on at the same time. And it has this very special or like this unique size to it, right? Because it’s not like a Space Marine 2 where you’re one, two or three guys or something like that, but it’s also not hundreds and thousands of units in these super massive battles. It’s like in the middle.
To me that feels very, very good because it gives you the feel of, okay, there’s a lot of stuff going on and it’s big battles, but at the same time, you can still manage really what is going on and it’s not like you’re losing the overview right away. So to me, I think that makes it interesting.
And also what we try to do is we try to really focus on story and campaigns. And so I think it might be a good entry point for players who are maybe not super familiar with Warhammer 40K, because we try to tell stories that even without too much 40K deep knowledge still make sense and can still be enjoyed by players who are not that deep into it.
Elliott Verbiest: With the campaign, we’ve put a lot of time and effort into ensuring that each individual faction feels very unique and matches also what the experience would be like for each individual faction. We kind of nudge players gameplay wise to play in specific types of playstyles for each individual faction. There’s of course nuance between them. So for example, for the Orks, you can play them as a green tide where it’s just you’re turning out a ton of units. Or you can kind of angle them more towards Orks get stronger from fighting and you emphasize more on their ability to gain battle traits and different upgrades for individual units to get more elite units for them. So we kind of help with those particular mechanics. We nudge players in the direction of, this is not just like how these factions would play organically for you, but also how they feel in the tabletop.
Jan Theysen: And also when you play the Ork campaign, you definitely have a good idea what Orks are all about. So it’s like a nice entry point I think.
Elliott Verbiest: Of course, that doesn’t mean we’re not going to have any multiplayer features and we won’t have some support for that, but definitely I think that the campaigns are the spotlight feature, I would say.
Jan Theysen: It’s ridiculous how many people tell us that they came to 40K because of Dawn of War 1.
IGN: That’s me! I did.
Jan Theysen: Basically every second person that we talk to says, ‘Yeah, because of Dawn of War I’m a 40K fan.’ It would be awesome if we can do it again, basically be like a nice entry point for players because it’s maybe a little bit less intimidating than maybe some of the other games out there.
IGN: Last question! In the cinematic for the AdMech, the Necrons perhaps didn’t have their best day at the office. There were plenty of Stormtrooper comparisons for their terrible shooting accuracy…
Jan Theysen: They just woke up from a million years slumber! When you wake up and you’re supposed to shoot someone… We saw that, of course, and we’re happy that the gameplay trailer of the AdMech turned everything around for people.
Elliott Verbiest: There’s also a story reason for it. The CGI trailers are all part of the overarching narrative that we have for the game. There is a reason why they may be a little bit more in disarray in the CGI than we see.
Jan Theysen: It’s also in the first missions. They’re not at their best in the first missions and we explain this in the game. But I get the point why people felt like, okay, they should have hit at least something.
Elliott Verbiest: One of the goals that we had is that for each campaign, the faction that is the coolest is the one you’re playing right now. So when you go to the Necrons campaign, for example, that’ll come across a little bit differently, I think.
IGN: Unlucky rolls. We all get them. It’s fine!
Jan Theysen: It’s a little bit like in the books. If you read an Ork book, then the Orks are the strongest and the coolest. If you read an AdMech book, then the AdMech are the strongest and the coolest. And it’s kind of like that in the game.
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War IV launches on PC on September 17, 2026. Commander Edition players can play from September 14.
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].
