THQ announced a new expansion for Dawn of War 2 called Chaos Rising. There will be twenty new missions starring the Blood Ravens and the level cap will be raised to 30. There will also be new war-gear including powerful Chaos-tainted items which will have a high risk for negative consequences. Chaos Space Marines will be made available in multiplayer mode and mutliplayer mode will get new maps and options.

"Dawn of War II took intimate brutality to another level and introduced RPG-RTS hybrid gameplay," said Relic general manager Jonathan Dowdeswell in a press statement. "The epic struggle between Space Marines and the forces of Chaos lets us take those two game-play elements and create an even more intense experience - this time, the battle is personal."

The expansion is due out in Spring of 2010. A co-op survival mode "The Last Stand" will be out in October.

Dawn of War II's largest update "There is Only War" is available today. The update will add eight new maps, changes to balance in the game, and an "observer" mode for match spectating.

Lengthy release notes can be found here: http://community.dawnofwar2.com/blogs/?p=761

Warhammer 40K's Dawn of War II Beta will go offline at 12:01 a.m. GMT on February 18th. Beta players need not despair as the game will release Thursday, February 19th.

Relic provided a glance at some of the statistics they have been gathering during the beta release, such as popular game modes, popular hero units and most successful hero units.

To see the statistics visit the DoW2 Blog Here:
http://community.dawnofwar2.com/blogs/?p=516