Dawn of War II Goes Gold, Release Date Inside

In a press release issued by THQ and Relic Entertainment today, the news that many a Warhammer fan has been waiting for is finally here: Dawn of War 2 is GOLD with the game set to hit store shelves on February 19th 2009.

Here is a short excerpt from the announcment:

Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II, developed by the award-winning Real-time strategy developer, Relic Entertainment, has reached the gold master stage of development and is now entering manufacturing. Set in the grim, war-ravaged world of Games Workshop’s Warhammer 40,000 science fiction universe, Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II delivers visceral combat, stunning visuals, and destructible environments throughout a non-linear single-player experience as well as a fully cooperative multiplayer campaign via Microsoft’s free Games for Windows – LIVE service. Developed exclusively for Windows PC and powered by an enhanced version of Relic’s proprietary Essence Engine 2.0.

Relic looks to continue their pedigree with Dawn of War 2, taking the emphasis out of base building and grinding out an economy and putting the focus solely on fast-paced and bone crushing combat, similar to the approach they took in creating the much acclaimed Company of Heroes.

There are a couple neat stills that I want to post from the newest CGI trailer but in the mean time check out this relatively new trailer showing off some of the units that you’ll be using to wreak havoc in the game:

It looks like Starcraft 2 is going to have some stiff competition for best RTS of 2009 with this one. If you are looking for more info on the game check out the Official Dawn of War 2 website.

One last trailer showing off how truly epic this game is going to be:

And I just had to include this trailer in here just cause its so friggin sweet it could’ve been a piece of candy: