When developers show off their games, they tend to defeat the enemy AI in spectacular fashion. But that’s exactly the opposite of what happens in the gameplay King Art Games just released for its upcoming real-time strategy game Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War 4.
In the video, below, creative director Jan Theysen and senior game designer Elliott Verbiest team up against Hard AI Orks in a 2v2 Team Skirmish PvE battle. These two developers have been at the helm of pretty much all the Dawn of War 4 battlefield report videos released so far. But those previous gameplay videos focus on PvP; this time, Theysen and Verbiest join forces to face the enemy AI — and they decide to go up against hard mode.
The video shows two matches, the first of which goes so spectacularly badly for the poor developers that they suffer defeat in just over four minutes. They declare that a practice round — mere training before the second match, in which the pair promise they’re “locked in.” They also increase the number of Victory Points needed to help extend the length of the match… just in case.
Well, that didn’t help either. The brutal, overwhelming Orks stomp all over the Emperor’s finest, delivering the kind of sweeping beatdown befitting of a Waaagh! Theysen and Verbiest do their best to keep pace with capturing points and objectives, but are unable to fend off wave after wave of attacks even with auto reinforce of their units on. Behind in Victory Points and starved of resources, Theysen and Verbiest have to way to generate a response army to fight back when the Orks make a push towards their base.
“I think I have to have a stern word with our coders about the hard mode difficulty,” Theysen jokes as he realises the Space Marines are done for. “I mean it’s supposed to be hard but also the boss is supposed to win!”
“I have no doubt that players will come back to us within like a few weeks of launch and tell us, ‘Actually we’ve managed to beat this within two days,’ Verbiest adds.
“I’m pretty sure that the people in the comments will discuss our shortcomings!” Theysen concludes.
This second match and the video itself ends unceremoniously: with Theysen hitting the surrender button before the Orks deliver the final blow. “This might be the second loss in a row which tells you two things,” he says. “First of all, we are not that good at our own game. And also the AI is pretty strong.
“This is a surrender. It was an honor playing with you, but we didn’t make it. Maybe next time. See you soon. Bye.”
And that’s that. The second match lasted 13 minutes, which is a lot better than the first, but clearly not what Theysen and Verbiest were hoping for. I actually really enjoyed the video, not only because it offers a first look at two-player co-op against the enemy AI, but because it shows how confident the developers are in the game itself. They could have thrown that gameplay out and recorded a new match on normal difficulty, or even tried hard AI again, and again, until they secured a win. But no, they wanted fans to see what Dawn of War 4 looks like as it stands today — warts and all — even if that means the developers aren’t covered in glory in the process.
It seems fans have responded well to the video too. “Pretty cool that you guys showed the defeat and how hard the AI can be. Quite interesting!” one person said in the YouTube comments. “I will never do hard in a Warhammer game Orks just nuke you,” another person, clearly familiar with the way Orks work, offered.
Dawn of War 4 hits PC on December 3, 2026. I think I’m going to stick with normal difficulty!
Wesley Yin-Poole
Director, News
Wesley is Director, News at IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
