For the first time ever, a Primarch is playable in a Warhammer 40,000 video game. Lion El'Jonson — aka The Lion — is playable in upcoming real-time strategy game Dawn of War 4. It’s a hugely exciting prospect for fans of the setting, who have so far had to imagine what it would be like to play as a Primarch in a video game. Now, we’ll get to control The Lion himself, the reborn leader of the Dark Angels chapter of Space Marines, as he presumably swats away all before him with the Emperor’s Shield and Fealty.
But how did developer King Art Games convince Games Workshop to let them do what no other developer has done before? And how did it approach making the seriously overpowered Lion El'Jonson work in Dawn of War 4? What does his inclusion mean for Dawn of War 4’s potential canon status within the setting? And will we get to see his face?
I sat down with director Jan Theysen to ask these questions and many more. We get into some serious detail about The Lion, the Dark Angels, and where we’re at in the Warhammer 40,000 universe, so sit down, relax, and trust in the Emperor.
IGN: I think the first obvious question is why did you choose the Dark Angels as the second playable faction for the Space Marines?
Jan Theysen: When we talked about, okay, what are the factions we want in the game, it's obvious that you need the Blood Ravens, right? It's a Dawn of War. And we talked about the other factions and then at some point it came up, okay, why just have the Blood Ravens? Maybe there is an option to also have another faction or another chapter. And basically Games Workshop said, ‘Hey, why not Dark Angels, could be a cool pick?’ And we said, ‘Oh, okay, of course, why not? Cool pick.’ And then they said, ‘Okay, what about… do you want Lion El'Jonson?’ And we were like, ‘Oh, okay, cool idea.’ That's basically it.
IGN: So Games Workshop suggested Dark Angels to you guys?
Jan Theysen: Yeah, basically they said, ‘Hey, just because it's a Dawn of War doesn't mean that it can be only Blood Ravens, right? There could be other Space Marines in there as well. And this was basically, okay then let's talk about it. What are the options and what could be a cool addition? And we took it from there.
IGN: There'll be a system where you'll be able to choose between playing as the Blood Ravens and the Dark Angels and you pick the missions you want to play. How will that work?
Jan Theysen: As you might know, we have four different campaigns in the game and for all of the campaigns we try to figure out something that gives the players some choices or some things they can do and influence in the campaign. And so for example, in the Ork campaign, you can literally pick, okay, do you want to play these Orks or these Orks and they're fighting each other. And so that's a very clear distinction.
For the Space Marines, of course that doesn’t make sense, right? They're not really different goals or anything, they're not fighting each other, but they're working on the same thing. And so we basically said, okay, what we can do is we can offer different gameplay experiences based on the factions, because story-wise, the Dark Angels, they have all the toys and all the power and they can basically do the big battles and the epic conflicts, while the Blood Ravens are… they have bigger problems and they need to rely on smaller operations, behind enemy lines, a little bit more covert operations maybe.
And so basically how this works is we have this Space Marine campaign story and there are different things happening at the same time. The Blood Ravens and the Dark Angels, sometimes they are at the same place at the same time and then you can play both of them. But other times it's like, okay, Dark Angels do this now, Blood Ravens do this now, who do we want to play? And then you can basically pick, hey, I want the big all out war battle or I want to play this more tactical thing maybe with the Blood Ravens. And then you can pick and then at some point they meet again, or the things converge again.
IGN: So you don’t change the story outcome?
Jan Theysen: The story remains the same, but the question is which parts of the story you encounter or you play with because the other stuff still happens, but then you only hear from it if you're not a part of it.
IGN: Do the Dark Angels have different units at their disposal? Are the gameplay mechanics different?
Jan Theysen: In general it's all Space Marines, right? The faction is Space Marines, but storywise in the campaign, the Blood Ravens don't have access to all the toys and to the big armies and so on. So their missions will be more infantry heavy and also a little bit smaller. And there is even here and there something that is more in the stealth or something that leads you to play a little bit more careful maybe, while the Dark Angles is more like okay, the big battles.
But they have the same units in multiplayer. In multiplayer for example, if you play the Blood Ravens, you have all the same toys because that's a separate thing. Where they differ is with the heroes. So both of the factions have two playable heroes, except for Lion El'Jonson, who is in the campaign but not really like a playable hero. So they both have two. And that of course leads to different things you can do, but also a little bit different playstyles maybe. So depending on the hero you pick, if you really are into slow progress and powerful defensive units, then you might pick the Terminator captain. And if you are more about quick stealthy stuff, you might pick Cyrus. There they can differ a little bit in terms of gameplay.
IGN: Let's talk about The Lion. We've never had a playable Primarch in a Warhammer 40,000 video game before. Why are you allowed to do this when no other developer has been allowed to do this? How did this come about?
Jan Theysen: When we talked about the Darker Angels we talked about options, what can we do? And this came up, and it was like, we were just basically asking is that an option or not? Just because let's make sure that we talked about everything. And they said, well yeah, maybe? Tell us what you would like to do with him and then we can tell you if this is an option or not. He's just so off the curve in terms of power level that of course you can't really have him as a normal unit in the game or something you can use in multiplayer or something like that. And so we basically said, okay, we don't want to make this all about The Lion and the whole campaign revolves around him or something, because he is again, so off the curve for that, it wouldn't really… I mean, how can we represent him in a correct way that doesn't mess up your whole game and balancing and everything? And so we basically said, okay, it would be really fun, it would be really cool to have him in the game, and it's a big honor to have him here, but let's just have it as a guest appearance. And so in the game there are two cutscenes and one mission where the Lion plays a role, and you can play him and he is fun and he is off the charts, but he is not available for the rest of the game because he’s just too powerful.
IGN: So you came up with a way this would work and convinced Games Workshop?
Jan Theysen: I mean I don't think we really had to convince them in terms of, they didn't want to do it or something. It was more like, okay, it obviously would be a cool thing for players to have it in the game, but let's make sure we get it right. And so if we have the Lion in the game, okay, how would he play? What happens? Is he one-shotting everything and how is this interesting? And so we came up with this idea that — without spoiling anything — it's basically the Dark Angels and the Blood Ravens did everything they could to stop the bad thing from happening, and then at the very end there is just something they can't overcome. And that is a big entrance for the Lion.
IGN: The power sets of the Primarchs are one of the most debated aspects of 40K lore. Fans love pitting the Primarchs against each other and speculating about who would win in a fight. Part of what you're doing here is unmasking a Primarch in a way, and revealing how that might work in a way that we've never seen before. We’re finally getting to see their power set in action.
Jan Theysen: In an RTS you try to give all the units that are in the game a certain character that fits the description and that works in terms of lore. But on the other hand, it's also of course an RTS game and you have to make sure that it's balanced, and that the players can understand actually, for example, what is this unit good against? And that is of course a problem if all the units are good against everything. We dealt with that for the whole production to basically figure out how can we make sure that all the factions feel authentic and the units feel authentic and so on.
For The Lion, it's a little bit of a special case because it's like the last mission in the game and it's more about, okay, let's have a cool cinematic thing going on here and then it's about having fun with a Primarch, and we didn't really care about if this is balanced or this is something that you can actually could theoretically do in multiplayer, something like that. Who cares, right? This is just to have fun. And if we would ever put Lion El'Jonson in any other mode, he could definitely not be the same unit that he is in the campaign.
IGN: Did you think about keeping this under wraps so players could discover it for themselves at the end of the campaign? You are going out now before the game comes out and you're actually talking about it.
Jan Theysen: I mean that's always the question, right? Do you want the big surprise for the game or, to be honest, want to use it in marketing? And I think that the point is that in today's landscape it's basically impossible to keep it under wraps. Maybe for a handful of players it would've been mind blowing and really cool and I get that. And of course if you could make sure that this is the case for a lot of players, then we probably would've done it.
But in reality it probably takes a couple of minutes and you have screenshots of that or a video on TikTok and then that was it. And so for us it was basically, okay, if we talk about the Dark Angels — because that is another thing. Theoretically, we could also maybe have tried to just keep the whole Dark Angels thing under wraps, but again, it's very hard to keep it secret. And then within minutes someone gets a post out and that was it. And so we basically said, okay, it's probably not worth it and let's make sure we all have fun with it early on.
IGN: And you sort of spoiled it yourselves. Did you see fans spotted a The Lion file name in a video? Was that intentional?
Jan Theysen: It was not. We didn't check the file name.
IGN: I would love to talk to you about canon. So have you spoken with GW about if Dawn of War is canon? If The Lion is in the game, I'm assuming it's set after The Lion’s return because what we're seeing here, the model that I've seen in the trailer is the new model. So what have your discussions been like there? Space Marine 2 is canon, and Titus is obviously a massive part of the ongoing narrative. So how do you fit in?
Jan Theysen: Actually, I don’t know if there's an official decision for that, and that’s probably something that Games Workshop has to decide in the end. But we know where it takes place in terms of location and time. It would fit into everything else. But I'm not sure if Games Workshop says, okay, this is canon now or not.
For example, picking Kronus as the planet the game takes place on. It was more like, okay, we need a planet. Do we invent something new? And basically the question was, well, we could also go back to Kronus and it might be fun to tell a little bit about what happened to the planet and who won the Dark Crusade and all of that. And so why not? And then basically we figured out, okay, where is Kronus? Which side of the Great Rift is it on? And so on. And so you slowly develop how could all of this fit together? But again, if it's now official canon or not, I think that is a question for Games Workshop.
IGN: So is Kronus in the Imperium Nihilus then?
Jan Theysen: Yeah, it's on the other side of the Rift.
IGN: Which would explain why the Dark Angels and Lion El'Jonson are able to be there at this point in time.
Jan Theysen: Well, it also explains maybe a little bit why the Blood Ravens are struggling, right? Because it's basically that chapter is kind of all over the place, but the guys we are dealing with, they found themselves in Nihilus as well.
IGN: Following that then, are we setting up some sort of relationship between the Dark Angels and the Blood Ravens here that fans will get a kick out of in terms of successor chapters? Or are people reading too much into the idea that they're working together?
Jan Theysen: I think that's maybe a little bit too much. I mean obviously we make sure that we represent the chapters and they're both Space Marines, but that doesn't mean that they necessarily trust each other or that they are great friends. But at least for us, it's not a big future thing that now for example, Blood Ravens and Dark Angels are, I dunno… they won't be in a buddy movie anytime soon!
IGN: The Blood Ravens are canon, right? They were made part of the canon by Games Workshop. And obviously Dark Angels are. So I think questions like that will be inevitable from fans.
Jan Theysen: It's true, but it's also, I mean especially when it comes to the Blood Ravens, it's a relatively small group that basically exists on this planet they use as a recruiting world. It's not like this is now the only thing. There might be other Blood Ravens out there, we don't know. And there are certainly other Dark Angels out there. So it's not like we are writing the history of these chapters now or something.
IGN: If The Lion is in the game, are we talking about the Fallen here in terms of the Dark Angels?
Jan Theysen: In general we don't really want story spoilers of course, but I think in this case it's not a part of the story really. There's an immediate threat and it's something that has to be dealt with quickly. And so we are really about that story and not too much about the backstory.
IGN: We’ve seen the Lion wear his helmet. Does he have voice acting? Does he have lines of dialogue? Do we see his face?
Jan Theysen: What you see in the trailer is part of the two cutscenes that we have with him, and he definitely starts out without the helmet, just to make sure that everybody understands who it is. And also of course he has lines, a little bit in the cutscenes, but also you can play him. And so obviously being an RTS, he acknowledges if he is supposed to kill someone, for example.
IGN: So we'll finally get to hear him speak! You know what modders are going to do when the game comes out, right? They're going to take The Lion and put him in multiplayer or skirmish or whatever it is. You must be predicting that.
Jan Theysen: I mean officially I probably have to say that you can't mod anything, but I can see people doing that and also having fun with it, so why not?
IGN: I'd love to get an insight into what it’s like working with Games Workshop when it comes to big lore stuff like this.
Jan Theysen: Without going into the details, we have a group of people on the Games Workshop side working with us, and we use them as this encyclopedia of Warhammer knowledge. So whenever we need something, we kind of need an ability or a weapon that does kind of this, is there something? And then they go away and come back and give us options on what we could use. And that is the main thing, because it's so complex and there is so much stuff. And even if you have someone like John French writing the story, he knows a lot of stuff, but even he maybe doesn't know all the little details for all the different factions.
If something is just not correct, then of course they also come back with feedback about that. But for us I think it's fine because in the end what we try to do is to be as authentic as possible. In the past, we all know that there were games that maybe some units and so on didn't feel like maybe they should feel and so on. And we basically said, okay, let's make sure we get this right. And Games Workshop was helping out with that a lot. Let's make sure we get it right.
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War 4 is scheduled for release in 2026 on PC via Steam.
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.
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