A closer look at Dawn of War IV’s Back to War In-Engine Trailer

Hi everyone!

We recently lifted the lid on our Back to War In-Engine Trailer, giving you a closer look at the real meat of Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War IV’s gameplay! Every bit of it was running in-engine, with one eye on the kind of scale and spectacle that’s so important to the series.

If the trailer launch passed you by though, no problem! As well as sharing it right here in this post, we’ve also picked out some of our favourite highlights from the trailer, along with a little extra insight into the work that’s going on behind the scenes.

Bringing back base-building in Dawn of War IV

First up, base building’s coming back in a big way with Dawn of War IV. All four of the factions in the game have many different buildings at their disposal, with fortification options such as the mighty Hammerfall Bunker.

In fact, the building system in Dawn of War IV is very similar to that of the first game. As you construct your buildings, perform research or upgrade those buildings, you’ll unlock new units to deploy in battle. Naturally, the stronger those units are, the more power and influence you’ll need to achieve in battle before you can field them.

Get a closer look at our Combat Director

We’ve got a deep dive on our Combat Director system coming to you in a future update, but we’ve completely overhauled Dawn of War’s sync kill system to take full advantage of modern hardware. 

Rather than animating just a select few final combat moves (like in the earlier games), our new Combat Director applies the sync kill system to every unit, everywhere, at every stage of the battle! 

The Combat Director is constantly asking questions of the battlefield and providing answers in the form of custom animations for each individual engagement. So if you were wondering what might happen if a Redemptor Dreadnought were to go toe-to-toe with a Deff Dread, your answer’s right there!

Using the right tool for the right job

You can equip many of the units in Dawn of War IV with different weapons or upgrades to suit the situation in front of you. For example, you may choose to replace a Space Marine Intercessor’s Bolt Rifle with an Auto or Stalker Bolt Rifle instead - or add an auxiliary grenade launcher!

This flexibility provides a huge amount of tactical variation when it comes to dealing with the current threat. You can equip your Intercessor Sergeants with a Power Sword and Hand Flamer to fight groups, for example, while the Thunder Hammer and Plasma Pistol will prove more effective against heavier targets like vehicles. As you experiment, you’ll develop your own suite of tactical options to tackle everything the game throws at you.

Fine tune your tactics with a multitude of units

We’re launching Dawn of War IV with a huge number of units, and this shot really showcases the strength and scale of the armies under your command. There are more than a hundred different units and buildings in total, and those units come in different variants as well as different weapon configurations too.

If you’re the kind of player who wants to dig really deep into the fine detail of your tactical combat, we want to make sure you have all the weapons and wargrear you need to bring your bloodiest Warhammer 40,000 strategies to life like never before.

The battle-scarred biomes of Kronus

Our story takes place right across the planet Kronus, which means we have many different biomes to explore. Whether you’re fighting on a sun-scorched desert or up in the mountain highlands, each battlefield bears the scars of a world at endless war.

As you progress through the campaign you’ll begin to see different missions pop up across the many territories of the world map, and you may have to decide which mission to tackle. Some of these choices will have consequences too, so if you decide to defend a Manufactorum Complex rather than the Hive City, for example, one may survive at the expense of the other.

A spectacular display of destructive power

Creating a sense of awe and spectacle is incredibly important to us, and so we’ve created a dedicated destruction system that brings each battlefield to life like never before.

Any buildings you create will collapse in style once sufficiently damaged, while even scenic elements such as structures and vehicle wrecks can be transformed into rubble by errant fire. Think of a Gorkanaut shooting a barrage of rokkits. Yes there are lots of rokkits, but these are Ork rokkits - not all of them will hit their mark!

This system we’ve built makes every battlefield feel uniquely dynamic, and gives every landscape a real sense of having been scarred by the events of the latest skirmish.

—

We hope you’ve enjoyed this closer look behind the scenes of our latest trailer. We’ll have more developer blogs for you in the weeks and months between now and the 2026 launch of Dawn of War IV. In the meantime, make sure to add the game to your wishlist if you haven’t already done so!

The team @ KING Art Games