Relic Entertainment

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Relic Entertainment

Type	Private (subsidiary of THQ)
Founded	Vancouver, British Columbia (1997)
Headquarters	Vancouver, British Columbia
Key people	Alex Garden, co-founder. Luke Moloney, co-founder
Industry	Software & Programming
Products	Homeworld Homeworld 2 Impossible Creatures Dawn of War Winter Assault Dark Crusade The Outfit Company of Heroes Opposing Fronts
Revenue	unknown
Slogan	N/A
Website	http://www.relic.com

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

1 History
2 Release History
3 Awards
4 External links

[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 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 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 a smash hit, with a Game Rankings average score of 94% and several Game of the Year awards from multiple gaming magazines and websites.

Soon after, a second, standalone expansion 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) and a Total War-esque turned base campaign, as well as a much-needed 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 modestly successful, but many reviewers complained that it was in the shadow of Company of Heroes, which many now considered the new benchmark for all RTS games. However Dark Crusade still won awards of its own.

There has also been speculation supported though various sources that Relic has re-acquired the rights to the Homeworld franchise from Vivendi, although no official confirmation has been made.

[edit] Release History

Homeworld (2000)
Impossible Creatures (2002)
Homeworld 2 (2003)
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War (2004)
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War: Winter Assault (2005)
The Outfit (2006)
Company of Heroes (2006)
Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War: Dark Crusade (2006)
Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts (2007)

[edit] Awards

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

[edit] External links

Relic Entertainment video games v • d • e
Warhammer 40,000 series:	Dawn of War • Winter Assault • Dark Crusade
Company of Heroes series:	Company of Heroes • Opposing Fronts
HomeWorld series:	Homeworld • Homeworld 2
Other:	The Outfit • Impossible Creatures