Hmm, yes, role-playing or massively-multiplayer online games aren't exactly the first thing that comes to mind when you think about Relic Entertainment, but the Canadians are planning to change this and to challenge their fellow-countrymen from BioWare. Mostly specialized in strategy games (and what strategy games!) up until now, Relic began experimenting with other genres last Spring - see The Outfit on Xbox 360 - and in years to come the will continue to diversify their playful catalogue, with at least one RPG and one MMO.

The news was let loose through a couple of job openings announced by THQ, in which they are looking to hire a Senior Designer for a RPG project, and another one for a MMO project, to be developed by their Relic studio (which they acquired back in 2004 for around $10 million).

Is the news good or bad, that's up for you to decide. On one hand, such a radical shift could affect the quality of their future strategy titles. But on the other hand, if they also manage to do a great job in these new areas, we can only rejoice. Just imagine a RPG as original and refined as Homeworld, or a MMO as balanced and brutal as the Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War strategy series.

Unfortunately, there's not much point in dreaming about a new Relic game based on the Homeworld universe, since that license now belongs to Vivendi / Sierra. But... who knows what the Canadians will come up with!

(N.B. Archive text, links removed)