I may have set my expectations for Dawn of War 4 too high, but it's a series that, to my mind, never retreads the same ground. It's therefore been disappointing to feel, having played it across two its campaigns that this long-awaited sequel may have taken too few risks - or been too reverent of the games that came before.

Back in the hands of Relic Entertainment, the original Dawn of War was closest to a traditional RTS game. Yet its use of cover mechanics, unit customisation, and onscreen violence felt distinctly new compared to other games I was playing at the time. As someone who'd grown up on Age of Empires and Command & Conquer, seeing units pair off and take part in animated scuffles brought the battlefield to life, especially after spending years of Saturday afternoons sliding static Warhammer figurines around a tabletop.

Then, in Dawn of War 2, Relic dropped traditional basebuilding and pushed the camera in to focus the action on commanding just a few squads. It upended the tried and tested mechanics of the genre I was used to. The hard unit cap meant it simply wasn't possible to assemble a vast army with which to overwhelm the enemy. The only way to succeed was to use each differently-specced squad as it was designed: heavy bolters supplying cover, assault marines launching into the fray to break up the enemy's defensive positions, recon units circumventing the frontline to attack a vulnerable flank. It was a bold reinvention when they could have just offered more of the same.

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