Dawn of War: Dark Crusade Due October 9

THQ's Dawn of War expansion pack Dark Crusade has gone gold and will hit stores October 9, bringing two new alien races to the real-time strategy game.

Game publisher THQ has announced that Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War: Dark Crusade has been released to manufacturing and should hit retailers worldwide on October 9, 2006. Dark Crusade is the second hybrid expansion to the company’s Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War real-time strategy game which is playable as a standalone game.

In Dark Crusade, players can take on all seven races—including the new Necrons and Tau—and fans with the entire Dawn of War series can access new units across each of the game’s five original races, new bonus content, and the ability to utilize all seven races in multiplayer mode.

“We’re delivering the visceral, cutting-edge RTS experience gamers expect from Relic Entertainment, and they will enjoy Dark Crusade whether they’re fans of the series or are discovering it for the first time,” said Tarrnie Williams, Relic’s general manager. “By making a hybrid standalone expansion, we’ve given the first time player plenty of single and multiplayer game-play options while providing a great deal of new content to the experienced Dawn of War veteran.”

Expect an “M” rating from the ESRB on this one—the screenshots alone are probably enough to justify it—if you’re desperate, check out the 300 MB demo available on FilePlanet and other sites.