Relicnews: the definitive source for all things Relic

Gamespy’s put up a two page preview if the Single Player game. It covers mostly the same information as the Gamespot one from earlier.

Gamespot’s posted a two pager about Dawn of War’s Single Player Storyline, accompanied by a mini video, and some new screenshots.

Dawn of War has every indication of being an impressive real-time strategy game. While the gameplay mechanics may seem a bit conventional, it’s hard not to get caught up in the atmosphere and style of the game. The rich setting of the Warhammer 40,000 universe comes to life like never before, and there’s certainly a visceral satisfaction to wiping out an enemy force or listening to the heavy clang as one of your space marines runs up and plants your flag on a heavily contested strategic point. At this point, Relic is almost done with the game, and we can look forward to Dawn of War shipping sometime next month.

Shipping sometime in September! Great news! Thanks to Jihad for the heads up on the forums.

Looks like there is a contest running on Gamespy/IGN. If you’re a resident of the USA, you could win an Alienware system, or one of 10 signed copies of Dawn of War!

There’s a new article up at Gamespy along with a lot of new screenshots. Andy Lang and Jay Wilson contributed heavily… and also mention how close they came to making a spongebob squarepants game.

Here’s a bit about why they picked the four races they started with…

Space Marines, of course, mean that the game wouldn’t be complete without their arch-enemies - the Chaos Space Marines, human cultists who have given themselves body and soul to the evil gods of Chaos that want to wipe out humanity. “We would have put them in anyway,” Wilson says, “We had to get in the Chaos Bloodthirster - he’s probably the coolest unit in the game!”

A good chunk of the team also has a soft spot for the insanely violent, yet incredibly amusing Orks, which also gave them a side that relied on weak units that overwhelmed their opponents through force of numbers. Last, but not least, they settled on the Eldar, whose weaker but much faster unit play to the gamer who specialty is maneuvering and fine unit control. “It’s classic.” Wilson said, “Whenever you look at the most basic Warhammer 40,000 set up, it always consists of those four races. After 20 years of refinement, they had most of the balancing issues worked out for us.”

Note, the screenshots contain many spoilers, including shots of mission briefings (which now replace the animatics if I remember correctly) and some of the Non-interactive sequences in the game. There are also a few shots of the Imperial Guard cameo units as well.

Thanks to Ceejay from RU for the heads up.

There’s a bit of Concept Art that’s been released to us via Relic.

Friendly reminder, Don’t Forget to Pre-Order!

Blatantly Stolen from RU.

Hope you’ve been giving your troops the pep-talk folks, because the first ever GameSpy Arena Prize Tournament is about to begin! That’s right, the top W40k: Dawn of War players on GameSpy Arena at the end of the contest period will compete for a chance to play against Team Relic, the team that brought you Dawn of War! Think you can take on the masters?

To have a chance to play against Team Relic, you need to be one of the Top 8 players on the Dawn of War Tournament Ladder by the end of contest period (ladder link and contest dates to be announced soon). The Top 8 will then go head to figure out who the best among them is. The lucky winner then gets to be creamed… err.. play against Team Relic in a no-holds-barred free-for-all!

Drooling yet? Wipe your chin, because it doesn’t end there! We’ve got loads of other cool prizes for other top performers on the tournament ladder as well. We’ll announce the contest date and the link to the ladder next week, so in the meantime, join the Dawn of War 1v1 Official Arena Ladder and start sharpening those skills! Post your thoughts, suggestions, and comments on this event on our GameSpy Arena Open Beta Forums.

Wee tourney!

There’s an interview with Jay Wilson up at Game Chronicles.

GCM: How important has Warhammer 40,000’s plot been to the development team and how it will it unfold (CGI, in-game movies, etc.)?

Jay Wilson: Our focus from the very beginning of the project has been on getting the Warhammer 40,000 universe right. Lots of games have been made in this universe, but we felt that very few have captured the true spirit of the universe. Our story was a big focus, as it was our opportunity to explore some of the core concepts of the Warhammer 40,000 universe. Concepts like corruption, vigilance, and faith. We focused on writing a story that would be approachable to anyone, but familiar to those who already know the universe. We tell our story in the same way as other Relic games, with cut scenes that make exclusive use of our in-game engine. However, we have foregone our previous use of animatics (2D animated cut scenes used in Homeworld and Impossible Creatures) in place of a more technical looking briefing screen that we feel fits the tone of the universe better.

We also have a surprise in the works for our opening intro, but I’m only allowed to tease people about that right now, not actually say what it is. :)

Surprise for the opening intro eh? Can’t wait for that!

Thanks to Blues News (via Jed) for the heads up.

Pre-order Dawn of War from EBX or Gamestop, and you get a bonus pack! It includes a poster, some of the soundtrack, some artwork on CD, a “making of” video, and a mini-strategy guide. Great for the Relic Collector in you! Both of them have it for $49.99 (US) with free shipping.

Here’s the EBX Pre-order Link.

Here’s the Gamestop Pre-order Link.

The guys over at Relic Universe managed to get some documents outlining HW2′s Development out of Relic.

A great read if you’re into that kinda thing.

Good Job RU! Discuss Here.

The HW2 Trailer has been ported to Quicktime and is now shown on the apple website.

I’m sure glad they didn’t update the trailer to show it running on Mac Hardware… it’s exactly the same as the Windows one.

There’s also a bit of a background info page up as well.

Thanks to WhiteGulls for the heads up on the forums.