Having opened a new studio in Montreal earlier this year and released the Diablo-clone Loki, French developer Cyanide has what we call 'a lot of irons in the fire.' The studio also announced today that it has waded waist-deep into the murky waters of middleware development, creating its own "dynamic 3D animation engine," which Cyanide interestingly describes as a tool that "integrates physical and biomechanical laws under the control of a powerful artificial intelligence system." Skynet, can you hear us?

While the company hopes to license the engine to other "small and medium sized" game developers, Cyanide is not above eating its own dog food, and will utilize the technology in its own projects, the first of which will be a title based on Games Workshop's fantasy tabletop game Blood Bowl. First announced briefly last year, the real news here is that the game, which is an unofficial follow up to the unlicensed PC title Chaos League, has been confirmed as in development for the Xbox 360, PSP, and Nintendo DS, as well as the PC. Few details are known at present beyond that the studio calls the project a "faithful representation" of the tabletop game, and adds that Blood Bowl should be released sometime in late 2008. In the absence of a new Mutant League Football, we will take what we can get.

THQ has announced the availability of a free PSP demo for Squad Command, the publisher's upcoming portable take on Games Workshops' lucrative Warhammer 40K tabletop license. As demos go, the 6MB download offers a taste of the larger game by placing players in control of a squad of five Space Marines and a mechanical dreadnaught taken from the game's larger Ultramarines chapter.

The full game will be available at retail in November, and will allow you to play as either the Imperial Space Marines or the their more evil (read: more spiky) cousins across a 15-mission single player campaign or on nine different multiplayer maps. Of course, if cleansing the universe of chaos for the Emperor while on the go is not your cup of tea, take solace in the knowledge that THQ will revisit its Dawn of War PC franchise next spring, while the company is also working with Texas-based Vigil Games on a 40K-themed MMO as well. In the grim darkness of the far future, there is only license whoring.

Games Workshop's Warhammer franchise has provided the setting for multiple PC strategy titles over the past ten years including Shadow of the Horned Rat, Dark Omen, and the recently released Mark of Chaos. Next year, Electronic Arts plans to bring the popular fantasy realm into the MMO market with Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning.

Speaking with GameSpot earlier this month, lead designer Steve Marvin said Reckoning will be the "best-looking massively multiplayer RPG out there". See if you agree with him by checking out developer Mythic Entertainment's (Dark Age of Camelot) massive gallery, which was just updated with over a dozen new screen shots.