Could Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War 4 come to console? Its creative director says RTS games on console are ‘always a big challenge,’ but ‘I think we could do it on a technical level’ Demi Williams | amznusa.com

• Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War 4 creative director Jan Theysen suggests a console version could be achieved on a “technical level”
• Theysen says bringing RTS games to console “is always a big challenge” because of the many key prompts on PC
• He adds that King Art would ideally make adjustments so that it “actually works well on controller”

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War 4 creative director Jan Theysen has suggested the upcoming real-time strategy (RTS) game could eventually come to consoles, as King Art plans for its future.

In an interview with TechRadar Gaming, where the creative director confirmed that the studio borrowed hero mechanics and UI features from Dawn of War 2 and 3 for inspiration, Theysen said that while nothing has been announced at the moment, he believes a console edition of Dawn of War 4 isn’t out of the realm of possibility.

“I mean, I think we could do it on a technical level,” Theysen said. “We are also looking, of course, into what else might come in the future.”

The King Art co-founder explained that since RTS games generally have a wide selection of keyboard and mouse prompts, it can be difficult to cohesively translate the controls to a gamepad. However, King Art has achieved this in the past with games like Iron Harvest and Battle Worlds: Kronos.

“RTS on consoles is always a big challenge when it comes to the controls, right?” he said. “And so if we did it, I think our goal would not be to try to get the exact same controls mapped on a gamepad because that’s not really working. I think we literally have something like 40 keys on the keyboard for different things.”

He added that King Art would ideally look at how it could change the gameplay in places and make adjustments so that it “actually works well on controller.”

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War 4 launches on PC on December 3. In the same discussion, Theysen also described how the game manifests the classic RTS experience of the 2004 game and how the game’s advanced animation system, Combat Director, initially sounded like an impossible challenge.