Panthers and Tigers plow through the desert, the shadows of aircraft racing ahead of them over rocky cliffs, leaving plumes of smoke to cover the advancing tanks. From the background, artillery fires its shells in staccato salvos to cause chaos. The successful breakthrough consolidates as foot troops dismount from the tanks and take up positions behind cover to capture the valuable supply point. This promises a welcome increase in fuel supply and in turn curtails the enemy’s reserves. You can count on them to want to recapture this location – or strike elsewhere in return.
Company of Heroes 3 brings back those exciting WWII-era real-time strategy duels – with more factions, units and maps than ever before.
We got to play a preview version of the game, which gave glimpses of the game’s two campaigns – the North African theater in classic linear form and the Italian theater as a new dynamic campaign – as well as the multiplayer mode. In this latter part of the game, the progress that the developers have made since the last preview build is particularly evident.
The fresh unit lineup of the four playable factions – Wehrmacht, Afrika Korps, British, and USA – has taken shape and is convincing in terms of gameplay. In a past interview with the developers, they spoke to us about their design philosophies for Company of Heroes 3 and the armies therein. Their past statements were echoed strongly in what we saw in this preview’s skirmishes.
While each faction has a certain focus – in the case of the Afrika Korps, for example, it’s mobility and offensive power, while in the case of the Wehrmacht it’s defense – they are all customizable enough to adapt to changing scenarios. Thus, with the Afrika Korps, you are not forced to conduct pincer attacks on two different fronts for the entire game in order to have a chance at victory – you can do this, which is extremely fun, but you don’t have to. It is always possible to switch to a defensive strategy and defend gained ground.
The highlight of my experience so far has been the battle groups, which are available to any army to supplement its capabilities. Like the doctrines from Company of Heroes 2, the battle groups come with various units, abilities, and bonuses that can change a faction’s play style – sometimes radically. What makes the battle groups from Company of Heroes 3 so interesting is the variety of choices and units they bring.
Each battle group contains two different trees with units, abilities and upgrades that you have to decide on during the course of a game – so where choosing the right doctrine was an important single decision in the predecessor, the sequel challenges your decision-making several times in a game, opening up another strategic front for players.
The Afrika Korps, for example, can call in Italian troops via battle groups to expand its own unit selection – but do you prioritize reinforcements of infantry or vehicles? Do you need long-range artillery at this point? Gathering lots of command points through successes on the field can get you to the end of both trees over the course of a game, but until then you always need to have a sense of which option is most needed at any given moment. It forces you to prioritize, to continually evaluate your position relative to your opponent’s.
This extra layer of decision-making contributes to the feeling that you exercise more control in Company of Heroes 3 than in its predecessor. The artillery strikes and airstrikes you can call in are still effective, but so far such point-and-click abilities don’t seem to be as deadly in one fell swoop as they were in Company of Heroes 2 – a very welcome reduction in the randomness factor. The overhauled vehicle combat is another example of reduced RNG.
Game speed, unit variety, and strategic depth are on point. Visuals and sound design are also worth seeing and hearing – for example, the American Sherman T40 Whizbang has turned out to be one of my favorite units. The thing not only looks funny – it’s a Sherman tank that’s got a missile battery strapped on its roof – but bears awesome firepower. Its range is quite short, which makes it risky to use, but the volley of missiles it unleashes shakes the entire battlefield: clouds of black smoke envelop the target area, craters litter the ground and the impacts sound deafeningly good.
There is also progress in the technical area, as the preview version was refreshingly free of bugs. Only the trucks that cart around artillery pieces, which were already noticed as being prone to dysfunction in the previous version, still refuse to do their job from time to time. At one point, an AI ally’s truck was happily spinning in circles at a supply point for an entire game. Do not worry, of course this precious happy truck was well protected throughout the game. Legends say it still spins in the North African desert to this day. Relic’s decision to delay the game’s release a bit was obviously correct.
Veterans of the series can confidently look forward to its release – Company of Heroes 3 is on the right course and will provide the ever-hungry RTS community with some fine rations.
Written by Marco Wutz on behalf of GLHF.
