Company of Heroes 3 News

Company of Heroes 3's missions are built for a wide variety of units and playstyles

Company of Heroes 3 looks and feels a lot like its predecessors in many ways, at least once battles break out. But its dynamic 'sandbox' approach to the campaign means the developers have had to create missions that can accommodate a huge variety of unit types and approaches. The developers of the upcoming RTS game say they've built missions to be flexible and challenging, no matter which company and equipment you bring to the fight.

In Company of Heroes games of the past (with the exception of the Ardennes Assault DLC campaign for Company of Heroes 2), missions played out in a specific, story-driven sequence. That meant the mission designers knew exactly which units would be involved from the start, and could tailor the missions for specific engagements.

That's very much not the case with Company of Heroes 3, where the campaign map presents a wide variety of options for each move, and you have a persistent company of soldiers that you can outfit and upgrade as you see fit. You might be playing as a British company or an American one; you might have brought tanks, or you may have invested more in logistics support.

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Watch Company of Heroes 3 smash a bunch of helpless buildings to smithereens

WWII RTS games Company of Heroes and Company of Heroes 2 were great at showing off destruction on the battlefields, whether they were on the Russian steppe or the quaint towns of Normandy. Company of Heroes 3, however, has the benefit of modern graphics hardware to power devastation that's more realistic, down to loosened bricks tumbling onto soldiers below after an artillery barrage.

A new devblog posted in the Company of Heroes 3 forums shows off how this is going to look in-game, and even provides some comparison video between the older Company of Heroes games and the upcoming version. As Patrick, a lead environment artist on Company of Heroes explains, the older games had to use some, er, smoke and mirrors to convey the effects of buildings collapsing or having holes punched through the walls by tank rounds. Camera-based effects were used to show debris, which wasn't truly part of each scene.

It's a whole new ball of wax for Company of Heroes 3, however, and Patrick includes no less than four examples of what it looks like on video. Now, there's real physics involved. "In CoH 3 we fracture the entire building, which results in real geometry pieces of debris - as opposed to FX debris used in the past," Patrick explains.

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Company of Heroes 3's Total War-like map has been improved by fan feedback

SEGA and Relic's upcoming RTS Company of Heroes 3 is introducing a grand strategy-lite campaign map similar to the Total War series, and the team is improving it "based on feedback" from the game's various Alphas - with changes to unit detachments and vehicle emplacements highlighted in a recent blog post.

The latest in the respected World War Two strategy game series, Company of Heroes 3 still doesn't have a firm release date beyond "2022" but has run several playable Alphas for fans to try out and leave feedback on. According to developer Relic in a recent post, the team has started implementing "big changes to address feedback" - and goes into detail on one area that's already been updated.

Previously, unit detachments and vehicle emplacements acted independently on the campaign map and could make their own actions. Now, Relic has changed this so up to three detachments can be placed and "permanently embedded in your companies" - and can be used to construct powerful defensive emplacements.

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Another Company of Heroes 3 alpha brings seven days of access to the RTS game

Company of Heroes 3 isn't due to launch until 2022, but the developers at Relic seem keen to provide plenty of opportunities for players to check it out early. Another multiplayer pre-alpha is getting underway this week, and will provide seven days' worth of action against both online players and AI opponents.

The multiplayer pre-alpha starts on Tuesday, November 30 at 9am PST / 12pm EST / 5pm GMT, and lasts until Monday, December 6 at 8pm PST / 11pm EST, or December 7 at 4am GMT. Pre-loads are already available, so you can be ready to play as soon as the playtest goes live.

If you didn't sign up for the previous pre-alpha, you'll need to register over on the official site. Then you can link your Steam account, and redeem a key for pre-alpha access via the Relic page. Once you've done so, the playtest will appear in your Steam library, and you'll be able to download it ahead of launch.

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"It felt like my feedback mattered" - RTS vets share experiences with Company of Heroes 3

When Relic announced it was bringing back its cult classic RTS game series Company of Heroes for a third outing in Company of Heroes 3, one of the core messages to come out of the initial reveal event was that design had been significantly influenced by the players.

Powered by Amplitude's Games2Gether initiative, Relic's own-brand 'CoH-development' program (give that person a raise) has led to some significant decisions, such as setting the strategy game in the Mediterranean as opposed to the Pacific. Relic delves more into this collaboration and the effect it's had in the first of a new series of video developer diaries.

While the broad strokes of what CoH-development is and what it's doing for the game are largely known already, what's neat about this video is that not only do you get to see some more alpha footage, it also includes interviews with prominent community members. One veteran, Stormless, talks about his experience helping with the design of a brand new faction, and how rewarding a process it was working with Relic: "There was a really nice response to it. They were very grateful for the effort," he explains.

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