This piece is a summary of a recent PC Gamer interview following a visit to King Art Games. During that visit, the writer got hands on time with Dawn of War 4 and spoke directly with the developers.
The immediate takeaway was that the game feels more micromanagement heavy than earlier entries. However, that extra complexity is clearly intentional. And importantly, the interview explains how King Art plans to keep it playable.
Smarter micromanagement through new attack controls
In the interview, Game Director Jan Theysen explains one of Dawn of War 4’s biggest quality of life upgrades. You can still drag box select units, but now you can also right click drag to assign multiple attacks. So instead of every squad dogpiling one target, you can sweep across enemies and let the system distribute attacks. The game assigns sensible targets first, and then you can fine tune things. As a result, you avoid constant babysitting, which matters with bigger armies on screen.
The writer notes this was a genuinely surprising improvement. It directly tackles the classic RTS problem of either over focusing fire or drowning in unit micro.
Reinforcements and camera controls get modernized
The interview also highlights other returning and new features. Infinite reinforcements can now be toggled before a unit loses a model. That change will resonate with long time Dawn of War players who remember how central reinforcement pacing was. Meanwhile, King Art is adding a fully supported WASD camera system.
Theysen specifically calls out edge scrolling as frustrating in older games. Because of that, Dawn of War 4 is being built with configurable controls across the board. The goal is to match modern RTS expectations rather than force legacy limitations.
Summary
This PC Gamer interview paints Dawn of War 4 as bigger, deeper, and more demanding than previous games. However, it also shows a clear focus on reducing click fatigue through smarter control design. Meanwhile, returning systems like reinforcements are being refined instead of discarded. If you want the full interview and detailed impressions of the Ork campaign, they are slated for PC Gamer issue 420 in the UK and 408 in the US later this spring.
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