Company of Heroes 3 News

This month marks the 1st anniversary for Company of Heroes 3 on PC, and we plan to celebrate in style! Today we break down everything happening in the weeks ahead to mark the occasion.

[h2]PC Update [/h2]

Our Year-1 Anniversary Update (1.5.0) is scheduled to be released on Tuesday, February 27th at 10am Pacific Time. It wouldn’t be an anniversary if we didn’t look back on the franchise’s history, and in that spirit, we have reimagined and updated several classic Company of Heroes maps from both Company of Heroes 1 and 2. We’ll share more details on which five classic maps (plus two co-op variants!) you can look forward to very soon. These will also include the first two community-made maps in the official map pool!

Need a glow up for your Player Profile? This update will introduce new Profile Customization which will allow players to personalize their profile appearance and stand out from others before heading into combat.

The Year-1 Anniversary update will also include multiplayer balance adjustments, some slight changes to a few existing Battlegroups, plus, an experimental call-in change which we’ll keep secret until our Balance Livestream (details below).

You can learn more in the coming days as we’ll be sharing several sneak peeks from the update. Be sure to keep an eye on our social channels!

• Facebook
• Twitter X
  
• Instagram

[h2]Livestreams [/h2]

As with all our updates, we will be hosting a deep-dive overview of all the changes and new content players can expect with our Development team. We’ll follow this up with a granular discussion with the Balance team as we review the patch notes the morning of the update. Mark your calendars and catch it all on our official Twitch page!


Year-1 Anniversary Update Deep Dive

• Thursday, February 22nd at 10am Pacific Time
  
• Plus, a teaser for what’s to come in the 1.6.0 update!
  

Year-1 Update Balance Discussion

• Tuesday, February 27th at 10am Pacific Time
  

[h2]Console Update [/h2]

We promised a Spring update for our Console Edition players and we’re happy to announce that you can expect it to arrive by the end of March. This update will bring the Console Edition in-line with our Steel Shepherd update on PC.

[h2]Community [/h2]

If we’re celebrating an anniversary, we need to get our players involved!

Our team is excited to announce a new Community Social Event – what we’re calling Frontline Mobilization. We’re challenging players to deploy 12-million units in Multiplayer or Singleplayer between February 27th and March 5th. If the community comes together to accomplish this goal, we’ll be unlocking special profile customization options for ALL players. This will be the first time we’re trying a social challenge like this, so show us what you got!



Also, for one week after the release of the Year-1 Anniversary update, players can complete three special Anniversary Challenges in-game. These will be in addition to the regular daily and weekly Challenges, but each will be worth a whopping 800 Merit each, for a total of 2,400 extra Merit to be earned during COH3's Year-1 Anniversary!

• Anniversary Competitor: Complete 5 Multiplayer or Custom matches on any of the new maps
  
• Anniversary Campaigner: Complete 5 Italian Campaign missions
  
• Anniversary Demolitionist: Destroy 50 vehicles in Single Player or Multiplayer
  

Coinciding with this month’s update, we’ll be hosting several Twitch Takeovers with some of your favorite members of our official Creator Squad. You can catch it all on our official Twitch channel starting on February 29th. Keep an eye out for channel takeovers by:

• AE
  
• Elpern
• Tightrope
  
• Lady Rytsu
• FitzBro
• Greyshot
• Momo4Sho
• Iron Cast

Don’t miss the community-led map making contest being organized by GBPirate. The CoH Worldbuilders 2024 Map Making Competition is well underway and features 7 player submitted maps that can be tested right now by all players on the Steam Workshop. The winners of the competition will be crowned in March, so for more details you can check out GBPirate’s YouTube channel or find the maps on the Steam Workshop.

The Company of Heroes 3 Resurgence Cup organized by AE kicks into high gear starting March 2nd. This 1v1 tournament with a $4,000 prize pool will feature an innovative 4v4 and 2v2 losers' bracket, where players can make a resurgence back to the finals! Catch all the action on AE’s Twitch and YouTube, with the finals taking place on March 10th.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Finally, we’ll also be debuting a special video segment from AE and Tightrope during our February 22nd livestream. You won’t want to miss it.

There’s a lot happening in the coming weeks, so be sure to follow all our channels to celebrate with us!

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

As the end of 2023 nears, and before our team takes a bit of down time over the Holidays, we want to take a moment to talk about our biggest update of the year for Company of Heroes 3 – Steel Shepherd and Hammer & Shield. We want to address some of the feedback we’ve been seeing from players, talk about the first 10 months since CoH3’s launch, and let you know what to expect in early 2024.

Read more below or check out our video summary here!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

The Steel Shepherd (1.4.0) PC update was the culmination of our team’s efforts to bring Company of Heroes 3 up to the standard that we, and our players, expect from this longstanding and storied franchise. Since CoH3’s launch in February, our team has released 5 major updates and over a dozen hot fixes and balance tuning updates as we work to continuously improve the Company of Heroes experience. Despite some road bumps, we are very proud of the work our team has done to take CoH3 from where we started to where we are today. Plus, we got to enjoy some great memes along the way – from the Boys Anti-Tank blobs at launch, to the Wizard Artillery Officer of today!

We want to thank all our players for their continued feedback, reviews, and bug and crash reports over the last 10 months, as your input has been critical in helping our team elevate the Company of Heroes 3 experience. Specifically, your submitted crash reports and feedback since the release of Steel Shepherd have helped us remove a frequent desync issue and to solve a nasty loading crash affecting 4 vs 4 multiplayer quick match. Additionally, your feedback helped us make several balance adjustments and to remove some gameplay exploits.

Our December 5th update brought a ton of new content to Company of Heroes 3 - two brand-new Battlegroups for multiplayer, an all-new Campaign Company, a complete visual overhaul of the game and its presentation, two new maps, adjustments to multiplayer balance, massive changes to the Campaign map, and of course, our all-new Replay system. We are digging into all your feedback on these new features so that we can continue iterating on them, while squashing any lingering bugs or issues. Our Balance team is monitoring your matches and feedback closely and, if need be, will be responding with balance improvements in our next update.

Our team plans to continue improving and adding to the CoH3 experience through future updates. In the months ahead, we want to keep Company of Heroes fresh and exciting. That means continued quality-of-life improvements, ongoing fixes and changes, the integration of community maps, multiplayer balance updates, new maps from Relic and more. There’s always more work to do, and the team here at Relic are eager to get back to it in the new year.

For our Console players, our aim is to bring the Console Edition of CoH3 to parity with Steel Shepherd all at once by the Spring of 2024. Certain features are exclusive to the PC Edition, however, the bulk of the gameplay and balance changes, new maps, and features that we have released on PC will be coming to console. That will include most of the changes from Emerald Bear (1.2.0), Umber Wasp (1.3.0) and Steel Shepherd (1.4.0) all in the same console update. We will have more details on the Spring update for the Console Edition in early 2024, but we are happy to say that we will also be bringing the new Air & Sea Campaign Company and the new multiplayer Battlegroups (Advanced Infantry and Italian Coastal) to console as well.

For PC players, you can expect our next update to arrive closer to CoH3’s anniversary. As soon as we are ready to reveal more, we will share details on what the update includes and when it will be released. Additionally, we plan to share more news on what’s to come in 2024 as we get closer to Company of Heroes 3’s one-year anniversary in February.

We want to welcome, and welcome back, all of our new and returning players — thank you for your continued support and for always holding us accountable. Our team at Relic loves Company of Heroes just as much as our players, and we hope the work we have done over the last few months makes that clear. To catch up on our recent update, be sure to review the Steel Shepherd Overview, the Mission Briefing or the 1.4.0 Patch Notes. As always, please keep leaving your feedback on our official Forums or Discord and be sure to report any bugs or issues you find using our form here. We hope you enjoy playing CoH3 over the Holidays and we will see you in 2024!

This hot fix addresses our top crash from this past week that was causing players to crash while loading into a multiplayer match. This was especially problematic in larger game modes. We wanted to thank all our players for filling out their BugSplat crash reports so that we could diagnose the problem in a timely fashion. Thank you for all your patience as we worked to resolve this. ELO & ranks are now reenabled as well.

[h2]Bug Fixes [/h2]

• Addressed a crash while loading into a 4v4 quick match.
  
• Artillery Radio Beacon now stops receiving bonuses to rate of fire and range as soon as the ability is cancelled.
  
• Fixed alignment of territory lines and icons on the tactical map for rectangular shaped maps.
  
• Fixed an issue where players could not change Company Support options when starting a mission in the Italian Dynamic Campaign.
  
• Fixed some messages not appearing when a tutorial is calling the player's attention to something.
  

After the release of our Steel Shepherd (1.4.0) update, this hot fix aims to resolve our highest priority bugs while also introducing some necessary changes. As always, please ensure you are reporting any bugs using our form here.


[hr][/hr]

[h2]Wehrmacht Italian Coastal Battlegroup[/h2]
We're happy to see people really take Coastal and run with it, trying all kinds of styles and strategies with the Battlegroup. We're going to continue to track its performance, but as a start we're going to tone down a few elements that we noticed were clearly over-tuned.

Artillery Officer

• Artillery Overwatch recharge time increased from 20 to 30
  
• Manpower cost increased from 240 to 280
  

Coastal Reserves

• Call-in ability recharge time increased from 35 to 40
  

Designated Artillery Overwatch

• Munitions cost increased from 80 to 90
  
• Overwatch radius reduced from 60 to 55
  

[h2]US Forces Advanced Infantry Battlegroup[/h2]
Advanced Infantry seems to be having a harder time out of the gate, so we are giving Rangers a significant boost. They will have improved base performance but also scale better with reduced costs and better veterancy, justifying their high cost and upkeep.

Ammunition Storage

• Corrected an issue where the Ammunition Storage reduced all weapon cooldowns to 0; now provides the correct 25%
  

Rangers

• Capture rate increased from 1.25 to 1.5
  
• Decapture rate increased from 1 to 1.25
  
• Heavy Weapons expert accuracy bonus increased from +10% to +20%
  
• Ranger Thompson SMG accuracy reduced from 0.54/0.33/0.18 to 0.513/0.3135/0.171
  
• Veterancy 1 damage reduction increased from 10% to 15%
  
• Veterancy 2 now grants +10% weapon accuracy
  
• Veterancy 3 now grants an additional 10% damage reduction
  
• Weapon Crate munition cost reduced from 100 to 90
  

M1A1 105mm Howitzer

• Barrage recharge times reduced from 60 to 45 seconds
  

M1A1 105mm Howitzer Auto-fire

• Range increased from 80 to 110
  

Ranger Weapon Training

• Command Point cost reduced from 4 to 3
  

[hr][/hr]
[h2]Art / Animation[/h2]

• British Air and Sea company has new icons.
  
• Fixed an issue where the heavy mortar would animate slower when auto-firing shells.
  
• Beretta M38 has muzzle visual effects when shooting.
  
• Improved the consistency of vaulting over objects.
  

[h2]Audio[/h2]

• Fixed cases where the Intel did not notify the player when a unit is lost in combat.
  
• Improved the audio of ships engaging in combat in the Italian Dynamic Campaign.
  

[h2]Gameplay[/h2]

• Observer Overwatch ability can no longer be permanently applied to a sector.
  
• Fixed an issue that allowed some vehicles to phase through medium sized environmental objects, like cars, instead of crushing them.
  
• Fixed an issue with the 254 Reconnaissance Tractor Off-Map Mortar Barrage also triggering the Smoke Canister ability cooldown.
  
• Fixed an issue where converting Scouts to Pathfinders or Artillery Observers while retreating would cancel the retreat order and stop the unit.
  
• Fixed an issue where Designate Artillery Overwatch and Designate Defense Line were useable on uncompleted Bunkers.
  
• Fixed an issue where overlapping multiple Designate Defensive Line auras would unintentionally stack the damage reduction for units in the area.
  
• Fixed an issue where the ownership of the British Forces Field Infirmary and Resource Cache would transfer to teammates when upgrading over a point they originally captured.
  
• Fixed an issue where Pack Howitzer and Heavy Mortar formations would have a single soldier wander far away from the squad upon detaching from a towing vehicle.
  
• Fixed an issue where the US Forces Demo charge did not display its camouflaged state.
  
• Fixed an issue where units could sometimes get stuck when retreating near buildings.
  
• Fixed instances where units wouldn't fire right after vaulting
  
• Fixed some abilities getting stuck on cooldown when recasting too quickly (aka spamming)
  
• Fixed Team Weapons not retreating correctly after tearing down
  
• Fixed the 4X4 Self-Repair ability decorator not properly showing a timer.
  
• Mines planted by Panzerpioneers and Guastatori now use the correct model, animation and effects. Mines planted by other units now also use the correct model.
  
• Removed the Churchill Crocodile flamethrower bonus damage against bunkers in Single Player.
  
• The Ammunition Supply passive description has been updated to reflect that it affects all units
  
• The Artillery Radio Beacon minimap range indicator now reflects the updated range when monitored.
  
• The Howitzer Free-Fire drills cooldown can no longer be skipped by using the Barrage ability
  
• Units will no longer cancel retreating early if their retreat target becomes invalid
  
• Improved pathing of engineers - engineers should no longer go to the opposite side of barb wire to cut it.
  
• Updated the Unit Command Card to include icons for the Breda Model 30 LMG, GrB Grenade Launcher, Johnson LMG, and MG 15.
  
• Added a new Visual Effect on facing order commands, to confirm units received the order.
  

[h2]Maps[/h2]

(2) Villa Fiore

• The central villa of Villa Fiore has been updated to reduce the dependence on garrisons and improve movement from HQ to HQ, via the villa itself. Three buildings have been removed, and a fourth replaced with a central mansion that has distinct blindspots. Height gameplay still persists in this area, but is less drastic once the player's units enter the boundary of the villa itself (any progress up the hill will negate it).
  

Minimap Updates

• Added updated versions of all Italy and North Africa minimaps for Campaign missions, archetypes and skirmishes across the Italian Campaign and North African Operation.
  

[h2]Single Player [/h2]

• Fixed some hovering strategic points on the Twin Beaches skirmish map. They are now grounded properly.
  
• Fixed the Focus Sight ability to correctly update sight and range.
  
• Fixed a few buildings that didn’t have Auto-Reinforce set to ‘on’ by default.
  

[h3]Dynamic Italian Campaign[/h3]

• Changed the Hold the Line objective to focus on the two capture points beside the Flak 36s. Previously the objective told the player to defend their base.
  
• Fixed Companies from getting healed every time a save game is loaded.
  
• Fixed Companies getting stuck in Spinazzola if airdropped on the location.
  
• Fixed one of the Spec Ops Company's upgrades reducing cost of Mechanized Support Center's upgrades instead of Infantry Support Center's upgrades.
  
• Fixed the attack movement preview being visible when trying to attack an enemy target with a company that cannot attack on this turn.
  
• Fixed the Medical Half-Track being available before requirements are met.
  
• Fixed the Wehrmacht aircraft abilities sometimes ending too early.
  
• Reduced the amount of path-blocking rubble near a medical point in Ortona. This change will now enable reinforcements that spawn behind the point to reach the street.
  
• Updated the atmosphere on the Enigma Mission.
  
• When playing a skirmish, the title now displays the squad Company's faction name instead of the default assigned faction
  

Foggia Mission

• Fixed a fatal scar error occurring when the enemy used a strafing run.
  
• Fixed an issue where some of the airstrike event notifications had no icon.
  

[h3]North African Operation[/h3]

• Changed the Ajdabiya scene atmosphere to prevent issues when transitioning between atmospheres.
  

[h3]Tutorial[/h3]

• Adjusted tutorial mission atmosphere to move it more in line with other North African atmosphere settings.
  

[h2]UX/UI[/h2]

• Added a tooltip on a disabled button in the pause menu during the Tutorial
  
• General tooltip and ability icon fixes.
  
• Reviewed negative affectors in campaign skirmishes to display the right color, a description and an icon.
  
• Squad count is now displayed even when only 1 unit remains in the squad.
  
• Updated icons for side objectives in the objectives pop-up to look consistent with icons in the objectives panel.
  
• Using the Afrikakorps ability to recrew team weapons from the medical truck will no longer cause an empty / null squad to be shown in the post-game stats Units tab, as well as in the Replay live stats.
  
• When setting up a match, all game mode option selections are transferred over when you change the game mode.
  

[h2]Addendum (Dec 13)[/h2]
Our team has identified the following fixes and changes from the 1.4.2 hot fix that were missing patch notes.

• Coastal Wall - Command Point cost from 2 to 3
  
• Challenges that were already in progress before 1.4.0 and are now over the completed amount can now be completed by progressing them just 1 more time.
  
• Converting an infantry unit no longer makes it lose any collected special weapons.
  
• Fixed a sync error when re-crewing team weapons.
  
• Certain elements of the Italian Dynamic Campaign UI are now correctly localized in other languages.
  
• Lowered the attack rate of the Partisan Hub Encircle Target ability, to improve game readability on the Italian Dynamic Campaign Map.
  
• The Fortified Positions trait in the Italian Dynamic Campaign now correctly references to emplacements instead of detachments.
  
• Updated description for the Special Forces' Elite Commandos Trait campaign upgrade.
  
• Improved resource crates clarity on the Italian Dynamic Campaign Map, ensuring all the different crate types feature a portrait and a brief description.
  
• British paradrop planes in Campaign from the Air and Sea Company can no longer be shot down.
  
• Campaign Companies will no longer offer an option to change battle and mission affectors if there is none available.
  
• Fixed the tooltip description of the Valentine II tank in the Italian Dynamic Campaign.
  
• Fixed an issue that was causing auto-saved Replays to no longer recognize players slots and colors after renaming them.
  
• Abilities tooltips are now anchored to the resource bar in Replays, no longer appearing as if they are floating when collapsing the Playback Panel.
  
• Match information will no longer be cutoff in the Replay List under certain languages.
  
• Improved chat box size and positioning in Replays to always show the entirety of messages.
  
• Fixed an issue that was causing ellipses to be applied to text in the Mods page even in cases where it was not necessary.
  
• Garrisonable structures no longer display a description in the Unit Card. The detailed description is still available in the unit tooltip, visible when hovering the mouse on the structure name.
  
• Added an Add Friend button in profiles of players that are not in the friend list.
  
• Updated Tobruk to use a new atmosphere.
  
• The Battle overview UI is no longer visible when quickly switching from hovering on an enemy unit to hovering on a mission space, which previously caused various UI and gameplay issues.
  

Welcome to this comprehensive recap, a culmination of the latest updates and happenings surrounding the highly anticipated release of Steel Shepherd and Hammer & Shield. In this overview, we'll delve into a treasure trove of news, videos, and various content directly linked to these updates. Moreover, we'll showcase an array of amazing community contributions that our players have shared with us.


[h2]NEWS [/h2]

[h3]Steel Shepherd Release [/h3]

On December 5th, we rolled out Steel Shepherd [1.4.0 Update] for PC. This update brings a range of changes and improvements. These include

[h3]New Replay System [/h3]

• Visual Improvements
  
• Balance Changes
  
• Overhaul to the Campaign Map
  
• New Maps
  
• New Battlegroups
  

For a detailed breakdown of all the changes introduced in this update, you can refer to the Mission Briefing or check out the complete Patch Notes.

You can explore before-and-after video clips showcasing some of the mentioned adjustments. Check them out right here.

• Tac Map Changes
  
• Pings
  
• New Maps
  
• Team Weapon Block
  
• Pathfinding – Long Range
  
• Cover Preferences
  
• Infantry Repath
  
• Infantry – Repath #2
• Acceleration
  
• Pathfinding
• Improved Unit Selection
  
• Tactical Maps
  
• Improved Weapon Selection
  

[h3]Battlegroup Content [/h3]

We've released two new battlegroups with the Hammer & Shield Pack. The Wehrmacht Italian Coastal Battlegroup and the US Faction Advanced Infantry Battlegroup. If you're curious about what the new battlegroups have to offer, check out the following videos for more detailed information.

Italian Coastal Battlegroup


Overview
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Deep Dive
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]


Advanced Infantry Battlegroup

Overview
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Deep Dive
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h3]Dynamic Italian Campaign[/h3]

The Italian Campaign has been bolstered with vital reinforcements to assist our forces in battle. This update brings forth the introduction of the British Air & Sea Campaign Company. If you're eager to delve deeper into the changes within the single-player campaign and gain an overview of the British Campaign Company, check out the following videos for comprehensive insights.

Overview British Air & Sea Campaign
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Overview Single Player campaign changes
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h3]Amazon Prime Gaming Drop 8 [/h3]

The Night Fighters Victory Point Cosmetics Bundle is available until December 15th. This exclusive package includes

✔️ Victory Point for all factions
✔️ Cosmetic sets for the USF for Scout Squad & Sherman


[h3]Xidax Sweepstakes [/h3]

Want a chance to win one of these stylish custom CoH3 Xidax PCs? Check out their post for more info!



[h2]DEVELOPER SITREP [/h2]

[h3]Steel Shepherd Overview [/h3]

Explore our Overview Video for an in-depth look at the essential additions coming with Steel Shepherd. Our team covers a range of updates, including Replays, Single Player Enhancements, Visual Improvements, New Maps, Challenge Modifications, and much more!
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h3]Steel Shepherd Deep Dive [/h3]

In this extensive three-hour video, we thoroughly delve into the aforementioned changes, offering detailed insights from multiple developers who will provide you with all the intricate details you're looking for.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]


[h3]Steel Shepherd Balance Q&A [/h3]

This video provides an insightful look into the balance changes in the 1.4 update, featuring our Balance Designers, Jason and Darren.
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]


[h3]CoH3 Bootcamp [/h3]

For a thorough rundown on everything related to CoH3 and perhaps even a guide on map making, explore our comprehensive tutorial bootcamp. It's loaded with valuable tips and tactics to enhance your gameplay, catering to all skill levels and aimed at helping you level up your strategies.



[h2]COMMUNITY SPOTLIGHT [/h2]


Check out some great content from our latest update
Screenshots taken by cpl.chen


Screenshots by Mr.Evil


Watch this video from Zaney Zap on the first Steel Shepherd match between Dumais and Orangepest:
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]


Tightrope shows off many of the improvements in Steel Shepherd in this before and after visual comparison

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

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