How big is the Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War 4 campaign? According to developer King Art Games, it’s so big it dwarfs the campaigns from all the previous games in the series — and might have more single-player content at launch than any other RTS ever.
Dawn of War 4 includes four fully fleshed out single-player campaigns, one for each of the game’s launch factions: Space Marines, Orks, Necrons, and Adeptus Mechanicus. In total, there are over 70 campaign missions at launch. To put that into perspective, Relic Entertainment’s beloved Dawn of War 1 had 11. Dawn of War 2 had a non-linear campaign structure with many repeatable missions, but an average playthrough involved 20-30 missions. Dawn of War 3, meanwhile, had 17 campaign missions.
In an exclusive interview with IGN, creative director Jan Theysen hammered home the point about Dawn of War 4’s campaign by saying that each of the four campaigns in the game is bigger than the entire campaign from Dawn of War 1. And that’s not just mission count, either — he believes this is true for the probably number of gameplay hours.
“I would say you are up for a treat because this is really what was our focus, right?” Theysen said of Dawn of War 4’s single-player offering. “We come from single-player games, and we like stories and campaigns. It’s always a little bit tricky with these claims because someone will find some RTS from 1994 that was bigger. But I think we probably have more single-player content in the game than any other RTS at launch. We have four campaigns and each of the campaigns is bigger than the campaign from Dawn of War 1.”
Theysen added that because each campaign has a branching storyline that feeds into the overarching story, you won’t play all the missions available in a single playthrough. “The Ork campaign — I can’t remember 100% — but I think it’s like 18 missions or something like that if you play everything,” he explained. “And in any playthrough, it’s still like 15 or 14 missions you can play. It’s a lot of missions compared to Dawn of War 1.
“If you’re a single player fan, I think this is really a game for you.”
Part of the campaign is the tutorial, as is standard. Dawn of War 4 kicks off with two tutorial missions in which you play as the Astra Militarum (lapsed Dawn of War fans may know the rank and file of the Emperor’s human army as the Imperial Guard). These light touch tutorial missions teach players the basics of the game, but each faction’s campaign will delve deeper into unique mechanics. The first faction beyond the tutorial is the Orks, and the first mission in the Ork campaign introduces the player to the Orks economy, build system, upgrades, and stratagems. When you move onto the Adeptus Mechanicus campaign, you’ll get a similar introduction to their quirks. One AdMech mission, for example, revolves around the Imperial Knight, unlocking its use and teaching the player how it works in the process.
“The campaigns become more interesting because people get new stuff all the time,” Theysen said. “And also, we are not front-loading everything. Your head would explode if we tried to explain everything in the first couple of missions, right?”
While we’ve spoken to King Art Games at length about how Dawn of War 4 works from a competitive multiplayer perspective (most recently we ran a deep dive on how the Space Marines work), there is an army of RTS fans who are mostly interested in the single-player aspect of the game and others in the genre. So, for them, they’ll be enthused by the offering here.
This is all for launch, but more single-player content is coming down the road after Dawn of War 4 comes out in December. Crusade Mode and Map Pack 1 arrive early next year, followed by a second map pack and Lord Ahmnok Last Stand Crusade in early spring. A third map pack and mission editor arrive after that, with a fourth in early summer, alongside the Guzcutta Last Stand Crusade. Two paid-for additions are also coming: the Blood Ravens story prologue in spring, and the Aftermath campaign expansion containing a new faction in summer.
Wesley is IGN’s Managing Editor. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at [email protected] or confidentially at [email protected].