‘It’s my favorite feature’: Dawn of War 4 is adding a way to multi-attack enemies using a dragbox

My first thoughts playing Dawn of War 4 when I visited King Art Games late last month were: Wow, this game is actually kind of micromanagement heavy, especially compared to previous instalments. There are all sorts of unit upgrades, the returning reinforcement mechanic, not to mention that Dawn of War 4 is bigger than its predecessors, with more units and unit variety on the field. So how is King Art tackling this more involved micromanagement?

“Everyone knows that you can multi-select units with a drag box, but in Dawn of War 4 you can also multi-attack enemies by dragging with the right mouse button,” explains Jan Theysen, Game Director on Dawn of War 4. “So, when there are multiple enemies on the screen you can say: ‘Okay, I want my selected units to attack these units.’ The system picks somewhat sensible opponents, but you can then go in and optimise, like I want my units to attack these guys on the right flank, but I want these units to attack this vehicle.”

It’s just one of the many ways that King Art is working to “Reduce the number of clicks you have to do”. I was personally dumbfounded by this discovery, since it really helps deal with the issue of either having a massed force of units attacking one target at a time, or the alternative of having to micromanage individual units constantly, which can be a lot in Dawn of War 4.

Other notable additions King Art is making to the Dawn of War formula include the ability to toggle on infinite reinforcements before a unit loses a model—something that will be especially appealing to long-time series fans—but also adding a WASD-based camera system.

“It drove me insane,” says Theysen. “When I played Dawn of War: Definitive Edition, that I had to move my cursor to the edge of the screen, or pan it. And you can’t change it, it’s not an option. We basically said, we need to make sure that, in our game, we have all the controls players would expect in an RTS and also to make them configurable.”

If you’d like to read more of my interview with Jan Theysen and Senior Game Designer, Elliot Verbiest, as well as my impressions playing Dawn of War 4’s Ork campaign, they’ll be featured in PC Gamer magazine’s 420 UK/408 US issues in late February or late March respectively.

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