Warhammer 40,000 fans were likely delighted to see Dawn of War 4 announced with a flashy CGI trailer at Gamescom 2025’s Opening Night Live, but they’ll surely have noticed one of the series’ most important characters is MIA.
Gabriel Angelos, Chapter Master of the Blood Ravens and essentially the protagonist of the original Dawn of War trilogy, is nowhere to be seen. And so when I had the opportunity to talk to Jan Theysen, Dawn of War 4’s creative director and the co-founder of developer King Art Games, I knew I had to ask where the big guy was.
“That was actually one of the decisions we made relatively early. We don’t want Gabriel Angelos in the game,” Theysen told me.
That’s a pretty major exclusion. Gabriel Angelos has been part of the series since its inception, growing in both importance and power with each entry. He began as a Space Marine Captain, leading his army of Blood Ravens to victory against the Orks, Eldar, and Chaos during a campaign on the planet Tartarus in the original Dawn of War. By the events of the third game, he was the Blood Raven’s Chapter Master and wielded the mighty warhammer known as God-Splitter. But it’s that ascent that’s seen him erased from Dawn of War 4’s roster of commanders.
“For us, he felt a little bit overpowered,” Theysen explained. “It’s a little bit weird to have either this slightly overpowered character from the beginning of the game, which is a little bit off, or you have to do, ‘Oh, well, he lost his memory and he lost all his power,’ which is also a weird trope.”
Dawn of War 3 earned the ire of fans for applying too many MOBA-like traits to its hero characters, and so Angelos’ departure may well be part of King Art’s attempt to return to the style of Dawn of War 1. “We basically said we want more ‘normal’ heroes,” said Theysen. “So we have Cyrus and we have Jonah coming back, but they’re all, power level-wise, more similar to normal units.”
Cyrus was last seen in Dawn of War 2, acting as the Blood Raven’s Scout Sergeant. Known for his gravelly voice (provided by none other than long-time Wolverine VO, Steve Blum) and shock of blonde hair, he returns as Dawn of War 4’s most prominent Space Marine character, at least as far as the initial marketing goes.
Jonah Orion, meanwhile, made his first appearance in Dawn of War 2’s Chaos Rising expansion, and was the Blood Raven’s Chief Librarian in Dawn of War 3, providing powerful psychic abilities on the battlefield. Both return with new, updated designs to reflect the Blood Ravens’ having been upgraded to Primaris Marines, the most recent form of Space Marines in the Warhammer 40k lore.
Dawn of War 4 is set to feature more than 10 playable Commanders across its four factions, so it’s likely that Cyrus and Jonah will be accompanied by another notable Blood Angel – whether that’s a new or returning character remains to be seen. But whoever they are, we know they won’t be Gabriel Angelos, and they certainly won’t be ultra-powerful.
That’s not all we learned from Theysen. Check out our big Dawn of War 4 interview to learn about how new studio King Art Games has taken over development duties from Relic Entertainment, why the game returns to the setting of Dark Crusade, and why Chaos is missing from the faction roster.
Matt Purslow is IGN’s Executive Editor of Features.
