Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War IV announced, coming to PC in 2026

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War IV has been announced at Gamescom 2025. For the Emperor!

This will be the fourth iteration in the popular real-time strategy series. Yes, I know it's heresy to include the previous game.

I've been a fan of the franchise since playing Dawn of War nearly 20 years ago. Do you know that the game got a remaster recently? It's called Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War - Definitive Edition, and includes all DLCs, upscaled textures, 64-bit support, higher resolutions, etc.

Dawn of War 2 took a different route than its predecessor, but was still very entertaining. Dawn of War 3, however, was such a disaster, it was almost unbelievable. How on Terra did Relic Entertainment managed to screw it up so badly after making two of the best WH 40K video games is something of a mystery to many. Ah, but here's something new. Dawn of War 4 is not made by Relic, it is being developed by KING Art, who made the Iron Harvest game, which is also an RTS.

Games Workshop has published a 2-minute video trailer on the Warhammer YouTube channel to highlight the setting of Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War IV, it takes place on the world of Kronus (same world as Dark Crusade), and you get to play as the iconic Space Marines chapter, the Blood Ravens.

They are not the only ones you will be able to choose. Dawn of War 4 will feature four playable factions: the Space Marines, Orks, Necrons, and the Adeptus Mechanicus. Players will be able to build up their base, recruit units, similar to the first game in the franchise. The upcoming game has 70+ campaign missions, which were co-written by John French (of Ahriman fame). French also helped co-write the rulebooks for the tabletop RPGs Dark Heresy, Rogue Trader (not to be confused with Owlcat's CRPGs). Other game modes in DoW 4 include Last Stand! Skirmish, 1v1, 2v2 and 3v3 multiplayer matches.

They didn't just casually kill a beloved character in the trailer, did they? The character does appear later in the video, that's interesting. The video also gives us a glimpse of the gameplay, which looks and sounds great, and the unit cards remind me of the Total War games, which is a good thing. It looks like the game will have a pop cap of 300, those cards make more sense now.

It all seems promising, but I think we need to temper our expectations, given the train wreck that was DoW 3. Hopefully, Dawn of War 4 will be a good game.

For my fellow 40K fans, Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus II is expected to be releasing this year. Owlcat is working on Dark Heresy, though it doesn't have a launch date either.

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War IV will be coming to PC in 2026, on Steam.

What are your favorite Warhammer 40,000 PC games?