Company of Heroes 3 News

Relic Entertainment made an important announcement today, that we'll be transitioning to become an independently-run studio. We began as an independent studio almost 27 years ago, and we’re excited to have the opportunity to come full circle and take charge of our future. You can find the full statement from our studio here.

So, what does this mean for our players and for Company of Heroes 3? Mostly, it’s business as usual.

Throughout this transition for Relic, we remain committed to supporting Company of Heroes 3, and our team will share more news as we firm up our 2024 plans. We’re excited about everything coming for you in our next update, Coral Viper, and we look forward to your feedback once you’ve had a chance to dive in.

[h2]Coral Viper (1.6.0)[/h2]

As part of this transition, the Coral Viper (1.6.0) PC update, planned to be released on April 23rd, will now be released on April 2nd. We’ve been able to complete the work for this update already, so you’ll be able to play the new Australian Defense and Battlefield Espionage Battlegroups 3-weeks early! Our Map Preference feature will likely need a bit more time after some initial testing, so we have moved this to one of our next updates.

On April 2nd, Coral Viper will release with the following new content, features and improvements:

[h3]New Content [/h3]

• British Forces – Australian Defense Battlegroup (Free in the store)
  
• Deutsche Afrikakorps – Battlefield Espionage Battlegroup (Free in the store)
  
• 2v2 – Operation Eindhoven Community Map by Spanky
  
• 3v3 – The Gothic Line Community Map by Tobeh
  
• 4v4 – Oasis Depot Community Map by Springrare
  

[h3]New Features & Improvements [/h3]

• Difficulty Selection for Coop vs A.I.
  
• Vote to Surrender
  
• Automatch Cooldown
  
• Mission Select
  
• Accolades (Player Progression)
  
• Map Preference (veto) - Now planned for a subsequent update
  
• Some A.I. changes
  
• Some UI Visual changes
  
• Vehicle Pathfinding
  
• Polish and bug fixes
  
• Balance Adjustments & Tuning
  

For even more details on what to expect in Coral Viper, catch up on our Deep Dive with the development team (see below) or tune in to our Multiplayer Balance Discussion on April 2nd at 9am PT.

We want to thank all our Company of Heroes fans for sticking with us. We can’t wait to begin this next chapter in our journey together.

– The Company of Heroes Team

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

This Hot Fix is focused on improving loading time and player interactions.

• If you have a lot of Steam friends, opening the Friends list in game takes a loooooooooooooooooooong time. So we fixed it.
  
• Improved update time when changing the equipped Player Profile items (Badges/Titles/Banners) in a Party screen or Lobby screen
  
• Optimized the loadout menu to improve loading time
  
• Fixed chat interaction causing a "$11183830 No Key" error
  
• Various player moderation system improvements
  

In this overview, we delve into recent events, including the announcement of new content for Coral Viper (PC 1.6.0), the console update, the conclusion of our two-week-long Twitch takeover, and new content shared by our community.


[h2]NEWS[/h2]

[h3]Coral Viper Changes [/h3]

Initially slated for release in March, our Coral Viper (1.6.0) PC update, featuring enhancements like Vote to Surrender and Pathfinding improvements, has been rescheduled to April 23rd, 2024. This decision was made to accommodate additional features and address player feedback more comprehensively.

Check out our blogpost for more details.


[h3]Console Update News
[/h3]
The Console Update was released on March 12th, providing console players with new content, features and improvements for the CoH3 Console Edition. Explore the comprehensive Patch Notes 1.4.3 for more details.



[h3]PC Hotfix 1.5.2 [/h3]

The PC 1.5.2 hotfix serves as a temporary solution aimed at mitigating the lag and audio issues experienced by players in multiplayer. Please be assured that we are diligently investigating this matter. For further details go to our blogpost.




[h3]
Frontline Mobilization Event Concluded [/h3]

The anniversary challenge concluded last week, with the community uniting to collectively unlock a title, badge, and banner. Given the community's achievement of deploying 12 million units by Monday, we established a stretch goal of 14 million, which was surpassed with 16 million units deployed on Tuesday.

As a result, the community has earned an additional unlocked title. Congratulations to everyone for their commendable efforts. Well done!



[h3]New Skirmish Tutorials[/h3]

We’ve released a new set of tutorials! Perfect for newcomers to CoH, these tutorials offer an excellent opportunity to hone your skills. We're going show you how to take on A.I. opponents in a 6 -part series, covering everything from the general flow of a skirmish match to working as a team and leveling up your skills to take on those expert AIs. Watch the tutorials here.



[h3]Twitch Takeovers [/h3]

We've wrapped up our two-week-long Twitch Takeovers showcasing beloved members of our official Creator Squad. Check out their vods on YouTube to catch the fun:

• AE
• Elpern
  
• Tightrope
  
• Lady Rytsu Part 1
  
• Lady Rytsu Part 2
  
• FitzBro
• Greyshot
  
• Momo4Sho
• Iron Cast

[h2]PARTNER CONTENT [/h2]


[h3]The Company of Heroes 3 Resurgence Cup [/h3]

The Company of Heroes 3 Resurgence Cup, orchestrated by AE, commenced on March 2nd. Featuring a $4,000 prize pool, this 1v1 tournament showcased an inventive losers' bracket with 4v4 and 2v2 formats, granting participants an opportunity for a comeback to the finals.

Witness the thrilling conclusion of the tournament by watching the final match here.
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]



[h2]COMMUNITY SPOTLIGHT [/h2]


And as per usual, here are some of the best recent screenshots from our community. These are shared by cpl.chen



That's it for this week. Tune in on CoH3 news on any of the links below.

You can submit your content for consideration by using the hashtag #CoHCommunity on our socials or by sharing screenshots, links and videos on our Discord or Forums.
That's it for this week. Tune in on CoH3 news on any of the links below.


[h2]LINKS[/h2]

Website Forums Technical Support Bug Reporting YouTube
Twitch Discord
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram
Steam

In February, we announced that our Coral Viper (1.6.0) PC update would come as quickly as March, which would include features like Vote to Surrender, Automatch Cooldown, Pathfinding improvements and Mission Select. As excited as we were to get these features and improvements into players’ hands, we felt we wanted to do more to address player feedback.

Therefore, our team has decided to move the release date of Coral Viper to April 23rd, 2024. This move will allow us to add more features and content to the update. Let’s run you through our decision-making process.




Back in December of 2023, we released a large-scale survey to measure your interest in features and content, while also gauging your general satisfaction with Company of Heroes 3. This survey helped us reinforce our confidence in the player feedback we had already gathered and, along with other information and data, helped us prioritize our next updates (1.5.0 and onward).



From your feedback, Hammer & Shield needed more faction related content to match the addition of the Battlegroups for the US Forces and Wehrmacht. We’ve also noted a keen enthusiasm for content, like maps, including community-made maps, and a steady cadence of Balance changes. As for features, Vote to Surrender, Automatch cooldown (leaver penalty), Map preference (veto) topped the requests.



Taking all that feedback in, we’ve decided to review our plans for Coral Viper, and we’re happy to share them with you today. First, here is the content we had originally planned to include in Coral Viper, if it had released in March.

[h3]Coral Viper - Before[/h3]
Content

• 3 new Community Maps
  

Features

• Vote to Surrender
  
• Automatch Cooldown
  
• Mission Select
  
• Accolades (Player Progression)
  

Gameplay

• Balance Adjustments
  
• Pathfinding Improvements
  

[h3]Coral Viper - After[/h3]
Now that we have moved the release date to April 23rd, here are the additional items coming in Coral Viper alongside the original planned content.

New Content

• 2 Battlegroups – British Forces & Deutsche Afrikakorps
• 3 Community Maps
  

New Features

• Map Preference (veto)
• Difficulty Selection for Coop vs A.I.
  
• Vote to Surrender
  
• Automatch Cooldown
  
• Mission Select
  
• Single Player Challenges
• Accolades (Player Progression)
  

Gameplay

• Balance Adjustments & Additional Balance Tuning
  
• Pathfinding Improvements
  

System

• Some A.I. Improvements
• UI Visual Improvements
• Polish and bug fixes

We hope that these additional items will prove to be worth the wait. As we are moving this update from March to April, we are also working on delivering a small 1.5.0 hot fix to address menu lag related to the friends list. You can expect this hot fix before the release of Coral Viper.



We’re happy to announce that the new Battlegroups planned for Coral Viper will be available for free (0 Merit) for all players via the in-game Store. This is our way of thanking you, our players, for sticking with us as we continue to work to improve the game and create additional gameplay content. This offer isn’t planned to expire for now, but if we change the price later, we will give you ample notice. Anyone who unlocks the Battlegroups for free will be able to keep them, even if their price is adjusted in the future, so be sure to claim them upon release!

We know delays can be frustrating, but in this case, we hope the planned additions will make up for it! Thank you for your continued support and feedback. Be sure to keep an eye on our channels for Coral Viper sneak peaks, videos, livestreams and more throughout all of April!

This hot fix is a temporary measure to address the lag and audio issues players have been encountering in multiplayer. Please note that we are still working on this issue, as its root cause requires additional time to resolve it correctly. We want to thank all of the players who helped us isolate this issue by submitting their Replay files to us. To everyone else, thank you for your patience as we worked to alleviate this issue.

[h3]General[/h3]

• Partial fix to audio processing to alleviate frame issues.
  
• As an exception, this update allows Replays from 1.5.1 to be played with 1.5.2