After a big flop and a big surprise, nobody really expected this: Warhammer 40,000 is getting a new strategy game. And no, it’s not the Total War: Warhammer 40k that many speculated about. Dawn of War 4 is coming. MeinMMO editor and Warhammer fan Benedict Grothaus doesn’t even know where to put all the joy!
Dawn of War is one of the best Warhammer games ever, and that’s even reflected in the ratings on Steam. No Warhammer game is better rated. The ancient RTS has captivated me like no other and remains to this day the best strategy game for me.
Unfortunately, it remained that way for a long time. Dawn of War 2 introduced a completely different (and for me unusable) gameplay without base building, and Dawn of War 3 was shelved just a few months after release – regrettably, as I had a lot of fun with it.
The only true alternatives for years were games like Battlesector and similar Warhammer 40,000 games, which only depicted battles. No base building, nothing. Total War: Warhammer 3 excited fans again and Realms of Ruin is much better than expected – but both are not 40k.
A glimmer of hope came when the Definitive Edition of Dawn of War was announced. A dream came true for me, and I thought it couldn’t get any better. I was wrong. 2025 might be the best year for every Warhammer fan.
A German studio for adventures brings Dawn of War 4
At the Opening Night Live of gamescom 2025, the Bremen studio King Art announced that Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War 4 will be released. After the huge flop of Dawn of War 3 and the remaster, I didn’t expect this to happen – even less in the same year as the announcement for Dawn of War DE.
Now it’s true, and I don’t really know whether I should be happy about the announcement or annoyed that I have to wait until 2026 to play Dawn of War 4.
King Art is one of my favorite studios. They are behind The Book of Unwritten Tales, one of the best point-and-click games I’ve ever played. Recently, they developed Iron Harvest, a very interesting, albeit only semi-popular strategy game. I quite enjoyed it.
That it’s precisely from them that Dawn of War 4 is coming surprises me even more than the announcement itself. But I’m optimistic: The studio has already won several awards, including the award for the best German studio in 2017 at the German Developer Awards.
Dawn of War 4 doesn’t show much yet, but that’s already enough for me
The announcement at the Opening Night Live wasn’t particularly big. The trailer for Dawn of War 4 shows just over a minute of cinematics and some gameplay scenes, but they look promising.
Already now, factions like Space Marines, Necrons, Orks, and perhaps even the Adeptus Mechanicus can be seen, and above all: base building. Placed buildings were sorely missed in Dawn of War 2. Part 4 apparently brings them back.
Visually, the game is of course much prettier than Dawn of War from 2004, but there are iconic units like Dreadnoughts, command units, and a Land Raider to see. The only thing that slightly bothers me is the unit bar, which strongly resembles StarCraft, but that’s a purely personal complaint.
In any case, King Art has fulfilled a wish for me with Dawn of War 4 that I’ve had for 8 years – since Dawn of War 3 was released and then shelved. For me, this is already a highlight of gamescom 2025. You can find more from the show here: The highlights from gamescom 2025: The most important trailers and announcements from Opening Night Live
