Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War 4 inspired director Jan Theysen has said King Art drew from the Dawn of War II and III games for heroes, upgrade systems, and user interface details, even though the team’s main source of inspiration remained the original game.
In a conversation with TechRadar Gaming, Theysen said that… how the project captures the familiar real-time strategy experience of the 2004 release. He said that, when the studio needed a foundation, Dawn of War felt like “more this classic RTS with base building, with big battles” and became the team’s guiding star.
The King Art co-founder also noted that, although the first Dawn of War shaped Dawn of War 4, the studio looked to the second and third entries for additional ideas, with clear influences in hero systems and interface design.
- "Much of the heroic aspect, naturally, is drawn from Dawn of War 2,” Theysen said said.
- "I mean, the heroes aren’t quite as powerful or not as important as they were in Dawn of War 2 or 3, though many of the upgrade systems and the various directions you can develop your heroes in let you tailor them in different ways—for example, increasing meteor range and similar bonuses that.
- "There’s definitely a strong Dawn of War 2 influence here. I also think the visual style and feel is kind of maybe more Dawn of War 2 than it's Dawn of With War 3: Dawn of War III, for instance, we appreciated certain parts of the UI. There are features such as the unit cards along the bottom of the screen that we’ve already drawn inspiration from, including in Iron Harvest and earlier RTS titles Dawn of War 3."
His explanation for drawing from the sequels is simple: Dawn of War is now more than 20 years old, so the team wanted to strike a careful balance between familiarity and modern design.
"Dawn of War 1 is an excellent game, and I’m a big fan of it, but it’s also more than 20 years old,” he said. “A lot has happened since then [between game releases], so whenever we can, we want to deliver the best possible version. But what we also made clear was, when in doubt, if there's not a a compelling reason to approach it in another way, then let's just do it."
That approach, he said, follows the same logic used in the series before: keep what works, and do not change systems simply for the sake of change.
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War 4 is scheduled to release on PC on December 3.
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