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Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War 4 has been billed as a return to form for one of Warhammer's classic branches. Very importantly, it's also a big new RTS game, the kind we don't see very often nowadays. Creative director Jan Theysen of developer King Art Games reckons the genre may never be king of the mountain, but as niches go, it can still be a "big niche" home to good games and enthusiastic fans.
Speaking with GamesRadar+, Theysen sizes up the position of RTS games in the year 2025. "I'm pretty sure that RTS will not be the big genre again," he begins. "It's more of a niche genre, but it's a big niche, right? And also, we felt like, okay, there are a lot of RTS fans that are just looking for the next cool, great RTS, but there are also, of course, a lot of Warhammer fans and a lot of 40K fans and Dawn of War fans and so on.
"Now, even more because of Space Marine or maybe the upcoming Henry Cavill series. So for us, it's like, if there is a sizable RTS fan community, if there is a sizable Warhammer community, maybe that's enough."
Part of the beauty of RTS games is the loyal, underserved following they can tap into, even if that audience might not be the bottomless well many large publishers are gunning for nowadays. "Let's make a great game for both of these communities," Theysen continues, "and then it doesn't have to be, you know, RTS won't kick shooters from the top of the food chain anytime soon, but that's fine, right?"
Senior game designer Elliott Verbiest touches on a key element of Dawn of War 4's production: the studio making it is big enough to tackle something with real heft – which we know to include four campaigns that are all bigger than the first Dawn of War campaign – but not so big that it gets so bogged down with de-risking that a niche genre like RTS becomes unfeasible or publisher kryptonite. Here again, small teams can be uniquely agile, and capable of punching well above their weight.
"I think something that Jan has really pointed out well here," Verbiest says, "is that RTS is something that a lot of people still hunger for and are excited about. And because King Arts – we've grown a little bit over the past few years – and due to the size where we're not a tiny, tiny indie studio, but we're not a massive AAA studio either.
"That puts us in a really sweet spot, essentially, for being able to deliver on the kind of production value that players are looking for for a real-time strategy game. And we can deliver that kind of mechanical and gameplay complexity that maybe a three-man team, for example, wouldn't be able to deliver on."
