Relic Entertainment

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Relic Entertainment
Type Subsidiary
Founded Vancouver, British Columbia (1997)
Headquarters Flag of Canada Vancouver, British Columbia
Key people Alex Garden, co-founder. Luke Moloney, co-founder
Industry Software & Programming
Products *Homeworld 2
Parent THQ
Website http://www.relic.com

Relic Entertainment is a Canadian game development company that specializes in 3D real-time strategy games and has released a number of innovative PC games.

Contents

[edit] History

Relic was started in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada by Alex Garden and Luke Moloney in 1997. Their first title, Homeworld, was released to critical acclaim and successful sales. Though they did not immediately continue working on the franchise (Sierra Entertainment, the game's publisher owned the rights), the game did have a spin-off, Homeworld: Cataclysm, developed by Barking Dog Studios and published by Sierra.

Their next title was Impossible Creatures, produced and released by Microsoft in 2002. It focused on a fictional environment during the 1930s, allowing players to design units from different anatomical parts of animals. The game was successful, though it did not receive the same attention as Homeworld.

In September 2003, a sequel Homeworld 2 was released. Although it boasted improved graphics and features and changed some elements of gameplay from the original, reviews cited some issues and did not score it as highly as its predecessor.

On April 27, 2004, publisher THQ announced it was acquiring Relic for close to $10 million in an all-cash transaction, completed around early May, 2004.[1]

Relic then released Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War on September 20, 2004, an RTS game based on Games Workshop's popular Warhammer 40,000 franchise. The game was a success, with many reviewers applauding its innovative resource management system and squad-based interface.

Following up on the success of Dawn of War, Relic released an expansion pack entitled Winter Assault on September 19, 2005. The expansion added a fifth race, the Imperial Guard, to the game, as well as giving the existing races several new units. The expansion was mildly successful, although it did not have the impact of the original game.

Relic's first and only foray into the console world of gaming, The Outfit, was released on March 13, 2006 for the Xbox 360. Not very successful, many reviewers saw it as a love-it-or-hate-it game. It was also criticized for its weak single-player modes.

September 11, 2006 saw the release of Company of Heroes, a World War II-themed RTS that used Relic's new Essence engine. The engine, which had been designed in-house by Relic, featured many next-generation graphical effects, including HDR and dynamic lighting, as well as utilizing the Havok middleware physics engine. The game was very successful and won many awards from multiple gaming magazines and websites.

Soon after, a second, standalone expansion pack for Dawn of War was released on October 9, 2006. Dark Crusade brought many new things to the franchise: two new races (the Necron and the Tau), new units for the existing races and a Total War-esque turn-based campaign, as well as a rebalancing and tweaking of game mechanics. Its standalone design meant that the player needed neither the original Dawn of War nor the Winter Assault expansion to enjoy the game's full feature (apart from online multiplayer games). Dark Crusade was successful and considered one of the best expansions of 2006.

On September 24th, 2007, Opposing Fronts, the stand alone expansion pack to Company of Heroes was released in North America. It introduced two new playable armies, the British 2nd Army and the German Panzer Elite.

A third expansion for Dawn of War, Soulstorm, has been made. It adds the Dark Eldar and the Sisters of Battle as new races, as well as new units for the existing races and possibly a new campaign system. This was however, not produced by relic but another company named IronLore

There has been speculation supported though various sources that Relic has re-acquired the rights to the Homeworld franchise from Vivendi. Finally, following the discovery of a document on the United States Patent and Trademark Office's electronic filing system by a fan, THQ confirmed that Relic indeed owns the trademark again, making a continuation of the series under THQ's lead possible. However, no comment on future installments was given.[2]

[edit] Release History

[edit] Awards

  • Best Developer, IGN.com Best of 2006 Awards[1]

[edit] References

  1. ^ "THQ reveals price paid for RTS developer Relic Entertainment" by Tom Bramwell, GamesIndustry.biz, 8 December, 2004
  2. ^ Rob Purchese (2007-11-06). THQ does own Homeworld. Retrieved on 2008-06-07.

[edit] External links

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Video games developed by Relic Entertainment
Company of Heroes series
Homeworld series
Warhammer 40,000 series
Other titles
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THQ, inc.
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