Relic Entertainment Inc. (formerly known as THQ Canada Inc.) is a Canadian video game developer based in Vancouver, founded in 1997.

The studio specializes in real-time strategy games and is known for series such as Homeworld, Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War and Company of Heroes.

[1][2][3] By May 2024, Relic had secured a partnership with an external investment group, allowing it to split from Sega and operate independently.

[4] Relic was founded in May 1997 by Alex Garden, Luke Moloney, Erin Daly, Aaron Kambeitz, Rob Cunningham, Gary Shaw, and Shane Alfreds.

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 US$10 million in an all-cash transaction, completed around early May 2004.

In an attempt to avoid recent complaints about digital rights management, Relic chose to release Dawn of War II on Steam and use Games for Windows – Live to arrange multiplayer matches.

In early September 2011, Relic released its second cross platform console title, Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine.

In May 2012, Relic Entertainment announced it was developing the highly anticipated sequel Company of Heroes 2 for the PC platform, scheduled for release in early 2013.

"[11] On January 23, 2013, it was revealed that THQ had sold Relic Entertainment to Sega for US$26.6 million as part of an auction of the company's properties.

"[18] On May 23, 2023, three months to the day after the release of Company of Heroes 3, it was reported that Sega would be laying off more than 120 employees at Relic, blaming external factors negatively impacting the wider industry.

In Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts, the Essence Engine was further improved to include weather effects, and also added support for DirectX 10 on Windows Vista.

Improvement to the engine featured in the game include the new line-of-sight technology, TrueSight, which aims to better emulate troop visibility in real combat.