Relic Entertainment’s shift toward indie-style games starts with Earth vs. Mars, a strategy title that blends tactical combat with sci-fi absurdity.
The developers behind Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War, Relic Entertainment, announced that they have a new title brewing. The new title is a smaller-scale turn-based strategy game that looks a lot like Intelligent Systems’ Advance Wars series, and it’s called Earth vs. Mars. In the new turn-based title, players will have to deploy “bizarre and powerful creature-human hybrids” to fend off Martian extraterrestrial invasion. Earth vs. Mars has also released a trailer (courtesy of IGN) showing their brand of warfare, and it can be seen below.
Relic Entertainment CEO Justin Dowdeswell says, “Relic Entertainment recently announced a new strategy: alongside continuing to work on the traditional RTS titles that we’re known for, we’re also going to work on smaller, indie-style games in order to explore new sub-genres, experiment, get our creative juices flowing, and release games more frequently,” including the excitement of bringing a “Relic twist to the Advance Wars style of gameplay.”
The Steam page description of Earth vs. Mars describes the Earth’s game-changer: “Your secret weapon is the ‘Splice-O-Tron.’ With it, you can combine human ‘volunteers’ with Earth creatures to create powerful hybrid supersoldiers to fight alongside Earth’s regular military.”
The new game announcement comes after Relic Entertainment declared it would be going independent in March 2024, as SEGA announced mass layoffs. The announcement then revealed SEGA’s ownership in the smaller developer was sold to a holdings company, allowing Relic Entertainment to develop independently for the first time since 1997. The Earth vs. Mars developer then said, “We want to thank SEGA, whose support over the years and guidance during this transition have been instrumental to our success,” keeping the relationship between the companies friendly upon transferral of ownership.
Earth vs. Mars is set for release in summer 2025, and fans looking for more information on the turn-based strategy title can visit its Steam page, where it is already available to wishlist.
