Interview: Relic's 'Tricky Transition' To Space Marine

With Relic Entertainment's release of Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine this week, the studio officially re-enters a space that it hasn't visited since 2006: the console action game market. Known best for highly-regarded PC real-time strategy games like Homeworld, Company of Heroes and Dawn of War, Relic's new third-person shooter/brawler seems far removed from the studio's most famous franchises. "It was a tricky transition, and there were certainly some growing pains," Relic associate producer Matt Rose told Gamasutra from the studio's Vancouver offices. Rose said that development of 2006's The Outfit for Xbox 360 was the start of that transition. That game, which blended third-person action with RTS elements, was Relic's first foray as a studio into console game development. "As we looked to make Space Marine, there was a lot of stuff that we liked about The Outfit, but there were certainly some things that could be improved upon," said Rose. Developing Space Marine for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC meant transitioning the studio to a console-centric action game developer through a lot of external hiring. That new talent had to mesh with the strategy game-focused talent already residing at Relic. "We had a lot of really good designers who could design weapon and unit balance and the sort of 'rock, paper, scissors' aspect of some of the RTS games," said Rose. "That translated really well to third-person shooter development, but we had to add some expertise." The studio hired talent with backgrounds at developers including Crytek, Microsoft, Electronic Arts and other studios with heavy console action game experience. "That's what really helped us pull the team over that threshold into the full-on console game look, feel and gameplay," Rose said. He said Relic's parent company, publisher THQ, was supportive of the project, after the studio initially formed a small team and pitched prototypes of Space Marine. "There wasn't a lot of convincing that had to be done," Rose said. He estimated that Relic's headcount is currently somewhere in the ballpark of 200 workers, with three projects typically being developed at any given time. Now that Space Marine is finished, the studio is looking to more opportunities in genres outside of the RTS. "Our mission statement is to make excellent games, not to just make excellent RTS games. The reason we wanted to do Space Marine was because there were a lot of people here who were super-passionate about the game and the idea," Rose said. "We'd been making [Warhammer 40K:] Dawn of War, for so long, everyone wanted to make a game where you got to go down on the ground level with the space marine, and control that character. And we want to build up our skillset and our base to develop on as many platforms as possible." "We want to be in the business of creating new, successful, critically-acclaimed franchises," he added. "And I think that's true across both THQ and Relic. Also, we want to continue with the franchises that we have, that the fans love and the fans want more of. Looking to add new and exciting franchises is a really big opportunity for THQ and for Relic, and Space Marine is certainly a step in that direction."