Relic's Radical Dawn of War 2 Agenda
DateTime:7/8/2009 5:21:12 PM

Once the team had decided to head in a new direction, Noseworthy says that many were surprised at how quickly people bought into the new vision. Even Games Workshop, the license holder and ultimate arbiter of what's done with the Warhammer 40,000 world, got on board quickly. "Games Workshop is really happy with Relic," Noseworthy said. If anything, Noseworthy understates the case. The original Dawn of War was so well-received within Games Workshop that the Blood Ravens, the Space Marine chapter invented by Relic, was adopted and made part of the original game's official canon. "They got really excited by this because because we're adding to their world in ways people really care about," Noseworthy said. "They leave most of the game design stuff with us and really focus on helping us take their IP and bring it to life."

Noseworthy also cited Blizzard's decision to split StarCraft II into three separate products with each one focusing on just one of the game's three sides. "Space Marines are the heart and soul of the Warhammer 40,000 franchise," he said. "They make up 50-55% of all tabletop sales. We could have created a pretty generic campaign that allowed the player to play as several races but we didn't want to spread ourselves too thin. We'd rather focus on less and make it much, much better."