Dawn of War IV’s Dark Angels Story Trailer Brings the Lion to Kronus

The new story trailer for Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War IV does more than confirm a 2026 PC release window. It quietly lays out the clearest picture yet of what kind of campaign KING Art and Deep Silver are building, and it does it by bringing one of the most secretive chapters in the Imperium into the spotlight. The Dark Angels arrive on Kronus with bolters blazing, and by the end of the trailer their Primarch, Lion El’Jonson, is striding across the battlefield as a playable unit for the first time in Dawn of War history.

This is not just a nostalgia trip back to a fan favorite planet. It is a statement that Dawn of War IV intends to scale up the spectacle, deepen the lore ties, and play with campaign structure in a way the series has not done before.

War returns to Kronus

The trailer opens in orbit above Kronus, the world that veterans of Dark Crusade know as a meat grinder of clashing Warhammer 40,000 factions. We see Blood Ravens strike cruisers translate from the warp and slide into a high orbit that looks anything but secure. Ork ships, ramshackle and bristling with gun decks, are already in place, and the narration establishes that the Imperium has arrived late to yet another war.

Captain Cyrus and Chief Librarian Jonah Orion anchor the Space Marine presence early in the footage. Their voices and brief shots of command decks, tactical hololiths, and astropathic warnings tell returning players this is the same Blood Ravens chapter that has defined Dawn of War’s identity, but placed in a wider, more fragile Imperial context. Kronus is not just another contested frontier. It is a world where everything left buried in Dark Crusade has begun to wake up again.

The orbital sequence ends in chaos as Ork guns and boarding torpedoes force both sides into a brutal close range engagement. The Blood Ravens are mauled, the Ork armada is shattered, and burning hulks begin to tumble into Kronus’ atmosphere. The message is clear: the campaign will not give you the luxury of a clean landing. The first act is about hanging on by your fingernails while the planet itself decides whether it wants you dead.

Old enemies, older powers

Once the camera hits the surface of Kronus the trailer becomes a tour of returning and rising threats. Orks are the first to take center stage, with Warboss Gorgutz roaring over the wreckage of drop pods. Fans will recognize his distinctive mechanical claw and bellowing delivery, and the footage confirms that he is once again a major antagonist. A second Ork warlord, Guzcutta, appears on the ground as well, hinting at parallel Waaaghs pulling the campaign into multiple fronts instead of a single linear confrontation.

In the background of those greenskin setpieces we start to see the real purpose of the battle for Kronus. The technoarcheologist Potentia Delta-9 walks through ancient ruins, servo skulls circling as she decodes sigils and ponders lost technologies. Her presence ties the conflict back to the planet’s murky history from Dark Crusade, where every faction was chasing buried superweapons and Necron tombs.

That connection becomes explicit when the trailer cuts to the awakening of the Necrons. Chronomancer Thothmek stands at the heart of a tomb complex, green light spilling from monoliths as phalanxes of warriors rise from stasis. Dawn of War III leaned more into elite hero units and smaller encounters, but this sequence is focused on massed ranks and synchronized awakening, signaling that Necron forces in IV will fight as proper legions, not just as a sprinkling of setpiece enemies.

Lore fans will note the specific use of a Chronomancer as the Necron focal point. Thothmek is not just a warlord; he is a manipulator of time and fate, and the narration hints that he is unsealing something on Kronus that predates even the Imperium’s memories of the planet. The war that the Blood Ravens and Orks think they are fighting is just one layer of what is waking beneath the surface.

The Dark Angels arrive

Into this escalating disaster comes the reveal that has set the 40K community buzzing: the Dark Angels are not just guest stars, they are fully playable alongside the Blood Ravens. The trailer stages their arrival as a salvation moment. Imperial Guard lines are collapsing, trenchworks are buckling under Ork tides and emerald Necron fire, and a despairing vox message fades into static.

Then the sky darkens with drop pods and Thunderhawks bearing the winged sword. The palette shifts to deep green and bone white as robed veterans and plasma gun lines carve through the melee. The voiceover emphasizes that “reinforcements arrive, but they bear secrets as old as the Imperium itself,” a nod to the Dark Angels’ reputation in the lore for secrecy, the Fallen, and a crusade that never truly ended.

Mechanically, the trailer backs up what the press info outlines. There are shots of Dark Angels deploying in greater concentration than the smaller, surgical Blood Ravens operations. When they commit, they commit hard: Land Raider variants roll forward behind ranks of Tactical and Intercessor squads, Deathwing Terminators teleport into the thickest fighting, and Ravenwing bikes sweep flanks with melta fire.

The campaign framing the articles describe is subtly visible here. We see mission title cards and holographic tactical maps that show operations marked with chapter insignias. Scenes that foreground infiltration and surgical strikes carry the Blood Ravens symbol, while large, decisive engagements where the Dark Angels banners dominate suggest that players will actively choose which chapter handles which crisis. The story trailer is cut to alternate between those approaches, hinting at a structure that lets you experience the same war from two distinct Astartes philosophies.

Lion El’Jonson enters the field

The trailer saves its biggest swing for last. After showcasing the Dark Angels in full force, the music drops and the screen fades to a ruined cathedral complex half submerged in ash. A lone hooded figure descends a set of cracked steps, flanked by robed Honour Guard. The camera rises, and the hood is thrown back to reveal Lion El’Jonson, Primarch of the First Legion.

For tabletop and lore fans, the Lion’s recent return to the Warhammer 40,000 setting has been one of the defining developments of the current era. Bringing him into Dawn of War IV is more than fan service. It ties the game’s narrative to the modern timeline of the setting, where Imperial primarchs are once again walking the stars as living demigods.

In gameplay terms, the trailer goes out of its way to show that the Lion is not just a cutscene cameo. We see a UI shot that frames him as a controllable character, and snippets of him cleaving through Necrons and Orks alike. His blade carves sweeping arcs through infantry while his presence seems to boost nearby Dark Angels, who surge forward under banners displaying the Lion’s sigil.

Compared to previous Dawn of War titles, where the most powerful hero units were force commanders, farseers, and warbosses scaled to the rest of the army, the Lion’s introduction is a clear escalation. He is presented as an endgame piece, the kind of unit that turns the final act of a campaign into a playable legend rather than a cinematic backdrop. That fits the series’ growing interest in hero-centric RTS design while still letting massed armies do the real work of holding objectives.

Lore context: Kronus and the First Legion

Situating all of this within broader 40K lore helps explain why the choice of factions and setting matters. Kronus, in Dark Crusade, was a world where virtually every major faction uncovered ancient technology, fought over Necron tombs, and left scars that the Imperium was never able to fully map or cleanse. Returning there in IV allows KING Art to treat it as a haunted planet, layered with unresolved grudges and dormant horrors.

The Blood Ravens, themselves a chapter of uncertain origin and suspiciously strong psyker heritage, are canonically drawn to worlds like that. Their obsession with relics and arcane knowledge made them a perfect fit for the original Dawn of War narrative arcs. Pairing them with the Dark Angels, another chapter defined by secret history and internal crusades, feels deliberate rather than random fanservice.

The Lion’s presence suggests that whatever Thothmek is awakening on Kronus reaches beyond a simple planetary threat. In the setting, Primarchs do not personally intervene in small, localized campaigns. If the First Legion’s gene-sire is striding onto the field here, it implies that Kronus holds a key to either the Dark Angels’ shameful past or to the wider war for the Imperium’s future in the post-Cicatrix Maledictum era.

For players, that means the campaign is likely to escalate its stakes from a familiar fight against Orks and Necrons into something that brushes against the mythic layer of the setting. The trailer’s repeated refrain that “war has returned to Kronus” carries a double meaning: the war we remember from Dark Crusade, and a greater conflict that finally reveals why this world mattered in the first place.

What the trailer suggests about scale

Visually, Dawn of War IV’s story trailer leans into a sense of scale that sits somewhere between the tighter focus of Dawn of War II and the sprawling base-centric clashes of the original game. We see entrenched Imperial Guard positions with dozens of infantry squads and artillery pieces firing at once, while Necron monoliths float above waves of warriors and destroyers.

When the Dark Angels deploy, the screen fills with overlapping bombardments, drop pod trails, and multi-squad advances. It suggests that the game is embracing larger army sizes and broader front lines than III, which drew criticism for feeling constrained and overly dependent on a handful of elite units. Multiple factions are seen fielding complementary forces rather than a single star hero doing all the work.

The introduction of a Primarch as a playable unit pushes this further. The Lion is not framed as your only tool, but as an apex element in an already grand battle. His presence amplifies the spectacle instead of replacing it. That indicates a design philosophy that keeps the RTS foundations intact while letting the hero elements from II and III evolve into one piece of a larger whole.

Faction variety on display

Even within a two minute story cut, the trailer quietly confirms a broad faction spread. The Blood Ravens and Dark Angels share the Astartes slot but are shown operating in clearly different ways. The former lean into surgical strikes, Librarian-led psychic assaults, and smaller scale tactical insertions. The latter bring armored columns, Terminator spearheads, and relentless frontal pressure.

Opposing them, Orks come across as a combination of old favorite and new menace, with Gorgutz providing continuity for series fans and Guzcutta hinting at fresh personality and tactics. The Necrons under Thothmek command an aesthetic that feels more ritualistic and methodical than previous appearances, especially in the chronomantic visuals that distort battlefield time and space.

Outside the trailer, the game’s overview confirms additional factions like the Adeptus Mechanicus, which are not foregrounded here but are likely to intersect with Potentia Delta-9’s hunt for lost technology. That points to a campaign that weaves multiple playable and non-playable factions through the narrative rather than focusing tightly on a single perspective.

Campaign structure: two chapters, one war

The most intriguing hint in the footage is how it frames missions and chapter involvement. The press materials clarify that the Space Marines campaign will let players move between Blood Ravens and Dark Angels operations, and the trailer seems edited to support that idea.

We see what look like separate briefing sequences for each chapter, each with its own commander presence. Company Master Astoran and Chaplain Ezrael stand over tactical displays while discussing planetary crises, distinct from scenes where Cyrus and Jonah argue over limited resources and high-risk gambits. That suggests branching or at least alternating mission chains, where you may choose whether a particular threat is handled with subtlety and arcane knowledge or overwhelming force and doctrinal zeal.

Compared to the rigid race-specific campaigns of the first Dawn of War and the more linear, character-driven story of II, this hybrid approach could give IV’s campaign both variety and a sense of a single, shared war. Rather than playing isolated arcs for each faction, you are coordinating two Astartes chapters through chapters of the same conflict, each bringing their doctrines and secrets to the table.

The Lion’s late arrival appears set up as the climax of that structure. It feels like the final convergence point where both chapters’ efforts and all the secondary factions’ agendas collide in a last stand or apocalyptic revelation. If KING Art delivers on what the trailer teases, the finale of Dawn of War IV will let you not just watch a Primarch decide the fate of Kronus, but actively play your part in that legend.

A return to roots with an eye on the future

Taken as a whole, the Dark Angels and Lion El’Jonson story trailer paints Dawn of War IV as a deliberate fusion of the series’ strengths. It revisits a fan favorite setting in Kronus, anchors itself in the mystery-soaked lore of the Blood Ravens and Dark Angels, and scales up its battles to something closer to the sweeping warfare that defined the original game.

At the same time, it embraces the hero-centric modern era of Warhammer 40,000 by putting a Primarch on the field and tying its narrative to current canonical developments. The result, at least in trailer form, is a campaign setup where two very different Space Marine chapters fight one war from different angles, while ancient powers and new factions turn Kronus into a crucible for the Imperium’s future.

If this footage is representative of the final game, Dawn of War IV may finally offer what fans have been asking for since Dark Crusade: a return to massive, multi-faction planetary warfare that still gives room for the series’ signature characters, and now one of the Emperor’s own sons, to leave their mark on the battlefield.