COMPANY OF HEROES 3
Two very different campaigns lead the charge in Relic’s epic WWII RTS
The toughest part of sequel development is balancing the familiar with the new. You don’t want to repeat the exact same experience, but you also don’t want to change things so much that you compromise the spirit of the original. Company of Heroes 3 has an interesting solution to this, It furnishes players with two distinct campaigns, one that remembers the old, and one the celebrates the new.
The former is Company of Heroes 3’ s North African operation. This is a classic, linear RTS campaign that will see you assume control of the German Afrika Korps as Rommel’s war machine sweeps through the Sahara desert. It’ll feature everything you’d expect from a Company of Heroes campaign: a cinematically told story, fast-paced, tightly structured missions, and more action than you can shake a Panzerfaust at. But it frames these things from a new perspective. Not only will we be playing as the Germans for the first time, but the highly mechanised nature of the Afrika Korps also means there’s a heavy emphasis on vehicular combat, and you’ll need to maintain these vehicles and even steal enemy armor to keep your army rolling forward.
HERO WORSHIP
Then there’s the other campaign. The one that takes Company of Heroes and does something radically, deliriously different with it. Set during the 1943 invasion of Italy, it takes Company of Heroes’ dramatic, spectacular real-time battles and infuses them with a massive turn-based campaign map. These two sides of the game are connected by what Relic refers to as a “holistic loop” whereby what you do in one has a direct, palpable effect on the other. When you encounter enemy forces on the campaign map, for example, you’ll have a chance to fire on them before entering the real-time battle, affecting the strength of both forces (or possibly wiping one out entirely).
In its Italy campaign, Company of Heroes 3 also wants to represent the full scale and logistics of mid-20th century warfare. Capturing a naval base will provide access to ships, which can be used to ferry troops around the map or bombard enemies, while an airbase lets you designate scouting missions or drop troops behind enemy lines via parachute. A nearby battleship will be as useful in a fight as it is to your broader strategy.
On top of this are more specific new features like tactical pause, which lets you take stock and issue new orders, alongside even more destructible battlefields, and an explosive multiplayer that lets you play with all the toys the singleplayer offers. If Relic can pull off everything it’s got planned, Company of Heroes 3 is shaping up to be an all-timer RTS.