Dawn of War IV Won't Fight Total War for 40K Fans

Two big-budget Warhammer 40,000 strategy games heading for PC in roughly the same window would normally set up a brutal head-to-head. King Art Games, the studio behind Dawn of War IV, doesn't see it that way. In an interview with IGN, creative director Jan Theysen and senior game designer Elliott Verbiest were remarkably relaxed about sharing shelf space with Creative Assembly's Total War: Warhammer 40,000, insisting the two games aren't in direct competition at all.

"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," Theysen said. "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." Verbiest backed that up with a line about rising tides lifting all boats, adding that the King Art team is looking forward to playing Creative Assembly's game themselves.

I actually think Theysen is right here, and not just because it's a diplomatic thing to say. Dawn of War IV and Total War: Warhammer 40,000 occupy different spaces within the strategy genre. Dawn of War IV is a traditional RTS with base building, resource gathering, and mid-scale combat. Total War is the familiar fusion of turn-based empire management and real-time tactical battles, typically at a much larger scale. Calling them both "40K strategy games" is a bit like calling Civilization and StarCraft the same thing because they both involve armies.

Different Scale, Different Crowd

Theysen leaned into that distinction, describing Dawn of War IV's combat as sitting in a deliberate middle ground. "It's not like a Space Marine 2 where you're one, two or three guys. But it's also not hundreds and thousands of units in these super massive battles. It's in the middle," he explained. "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 what is going on."

The release calendar helps too. Dawn of War IV has a confirmed launch date of September 17, 2026 on PC via Steam. Total War: Warhammer 40,000 doesn't have a release window yet, and while a late 2026 launch isn't impossible, it would put the two games uncomfortably close together. Creative Assembly's game is also coming to PS5 and Xbox Series X|S, giving it a console audience that Dawn of War IV, as a PC exclusive, won't touch.

What I find more interesting than the competitive angle is Theysen's pitch for Dawn of War IV as a gateway into the broader 40K universe. He pointed out that "basically every second person" the team talks to says they became a Warhammer 40K fan because of the original Dawn of War, which launched over 20 years ago. The new game ships with four faction campaigns covering Space Marines, Orks, Necrons, and Adeptus Mechanicus, each designed to work even for players with zero lore knowledge. If King Art can pull that off while satisfying the hardcore RTS crowd, they'll have earned the Dawn of War name regardless of what Creative Assembly does.

The 40K video game lineup is stacked right now. Chaos Gate: Deathwatch is on the horizon, Mechanicus 2 just launched (with some rough performance issues), and Owlcat's Dark Heresy beta is live alongside continued Rogue Trader DLC support. If anything, the real risk for Dawn of War IV isn't Total War; it's 40K fatigue from a fanbase being asked to spread its time and money across half a dozen games in the same universe.