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Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War 4 Hard Mode Is No Joke — Watch AI-Controlled Orks Wipe the Floor With 2 Developers Playing Space Marines
King Art Games released gameplay footage of Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War 4 featuring creative director Jan Theysen and senior game designer Elliott Verbiest competing against Hard mode artificial intelligence. Rather than the typical developer showcase where the creators achieve victory, both matches ended in decisive defeats for the player-controlled Space Marines, demonstrating the game's challenging difficulty settings and the developers' confidence in their work.
The video shows two consecutive losses in 2v2 team skirmish matches. The first encounter lasted just over four minutes before defeat, whilst the second extended to thirteen minutes before the developers surrendered. Despite attempting to adjust match parameters and promising to be "locked in" for the second attempt, the pair found themselves unable to accumulate sufficient victory points or resources to mount a defence against relentless Ork attacks. The developers joked about reconsidering the hard mode difficulty balance, whilst acknowledging the AI's strength. The game launches on PC on 3 December 2026, and the developers' willingness to showcase failure rather than edit for a victory has resonated positively with viewers.
In short
- Developers lost twice in a row against Hard mode AI in new gameplay footage
- First match lasted 4 minutes, second lasted 13 minutes before surrender
- Game launches 3 December 2026; fans praised the developers' honest approach
Explained simply
Warhammer 40,000 is a science-fiction setting built around a distant future of rival human and alien forces at war. Dawn of War 4 is a real-time strategy game in which players command armies, gather resources and fight for control of the battlefield.
The Space Marines are elite human soldiers, while the Orks are a violent alien species that fights in large numbers. King Art Games is making the game, and its developers have shown matches between the two forces to demonstrate how the computer-controlled opponent behaves at different difficulty levels.
The game is due to launch on PC on 3 December 2026. Its difficulty matters to players who want a demanding strategy challenge, and footage of developers playing their own game can offer a glimpse of how its matches work.
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