Even the first Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War enhanced its battles with cool animations, but the new Dawn of War 4 aims to take it even further. Early game testers have responded very positively, as they definitely want more of it.
What kind of feature is this? Real-time strategy games (RTS) usually do not shine with complex combat animations. Each unit has a selection of animations that play in sequence during combat – without reacting much to enemy attacks. If a unit is out of hit points, it simply falls over dead, and that’s it.
However, the first Dawn of War introduced a feature that is still very rare in RTS games today: Sync-Kills. These are elaborate finishing animations that replace the usual attack animations for the final hit on an enemy. In the realm of strategy games, such sync kills can be seen in the Total War games, for example.
The developers of Dawn of War 4, the German studio KING Art, want to focus even more on special combat animations than any previous installments in the series. In addition to sync kills, the melee combat itself is supposed to look more cinematic. According to early players, the developers seem to be on a good path with this.
Even the gameplay trailer for Dawn of War 4 looks like a cinematic:
Testers want longer battles to admire the animations
What do these players say? First of all, no, you didn’t miss a shadow drop. Dawn of War 4 has still not been released, and a release date is still pending. However, there have already been some closed alpha tests, as Senior Game Developer Elliott Verbiest explained in an episode of Deep Strike. That is an interview format on Warhammer TV.
From these playtests, quite a bit of feedback has emerged, and one of the main points was about the animations in the battles. Early testers found them so cool that they wanted to see more of them – and asked the developers to let battles run longer.
“People found it so spectacular that they wanted to keep seeing more of it,” Verbiest explains, adding: “That really showed that we have something special here.”
This discussion also involved how to faithfully translate the four factions – Space Marines, Necrons, Orks, and the Adeptus Mechanicus – from the tabletop into the game. Space Marines are to feel like the powerful elite force that they are. However, they cannot match other factions like the Orks in sheer numbers, who overwhelm their enemies with a green tide.
The Necrons are also mentioned. They are to have a way to resurrect killed units – they are, after all, undead machine beings. Here, Verbiest explains that care had to be taken not to make this ability too powerful.
How important are sync kills to you in strategy games? Are you excited that Dawn of War 4 is going all out, or do you not really care? Feel free to let us know in the comments. Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War is being developed in Germany by Studio KING Art, and they know exactly what strategy game fans want.
