Dawn of War 4 to launch with four faction campaigns and about 70 missions

Theysen said the decision to give the Space Marines, Orks, Necrons and Adeptus Mechanicus their own campaigns was 'the first thing we decided.' He said Dawn of War and Warhammer in general 'is fundamentally about the factions' and 'how weird and crazy and cool they are.' Players would not learn enough about the Necrons or the Adeptus Mechanicus if they only played as the Space Marines and fought those factions in a handful of missions, he said, so the team wanted one campaign for each faction.

King Art also looked at what Theysen called the 'best' real-time strategy campaigns, including Warcraft 3, and concluded that a cinematic experience with cutscenes, heroes and a more interesting story was 'very important.'

Theysen said the team's ideas kept growing around the four campaigns. King Art wanted branching stories and mutually exclusive missions, and Theysen described discussing features such as letting players choose which hero to play, showing two sides of the same story or changing how the story progresses.

'It snowballed basically,' Theysen said. 'I mean, we like art, and we like campaigns a lot, and so for us it was like a little bit like kids in a candy shop, right?' He said the result was 'four really big campaigns and like 70 missions or something; it's insane.'

Theysen also confirmed that King Art spoke with Games Workshop about the four faction campaign ideas, which he said were decided 'super early,' and collaborated with the company on the lore.