Jay Wilson on the Development of Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War

Hi, my name is Jay Wilson, I'm the Lead Designer on the upcoming RTS game Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War, and this is my designer diary. The role of the Lead Designer at Relic is to be the gameplay "vision-holder" for a game, to work with the team to establish the gameplay vision of the game and then make sure that vision is maintained through the development of the project. I'm in charge of the design team, which means I'm supposed to make sure the whole thing is fun to play as well. Given that role, I'm probably the ideal person to tell you all how Dawn of War came to be, and our strategy in utilizing the Warhammer 40,000 universe to make an awesome RTS game.

Dawn of War started with a phone call between Relic and THQ, where our top people and their top people were talking about exactly how we could do a project together, and what that project could be. With THQ holding interactive rights to Warhammer 40,000, the property quickly came up as a natural option. Little did THQ know what a passion for Wathammer 40,000 they had found in Relic. There are over a dozen long-term, hardcore fans here, myself being one of them, and so we were a perfect choice for an RTS game with this license. So, our CEO (Ron Moravek) came over and said to me, "How would you like to make a Warhammer 40,000 RTS?"