Company of Heroes 3 News

Company of Heroes 3's story will change based on your actions, The Witcher-style

The long-awaited WW2 RTS sequel Company of Heroes 3 was finally announced last month after at least four years in development, with the eagerly-anticipated title not due for a release until late 2022. While there's still plenty fans don't know about the game, developer Relic Entertainment has revealed more about the story - and how it will be "influenced by your actions".

The team's latest development blog focuses on storytelling features in Company of Heroes 3 and how the player will experience the narrative - and influence it, apparently. The game will start with "a cold open mission" that's basically a tutorial, then an intro to the campaign map and the beginning of the story.

While Relic says that the end of the campaign will feature an outro featuring the "historically authentic ending of the Italy campaign", the narrative itself will be influenced by the player's actions and "will reflect the dynamic nature" of the game. Despite having a set beginning and end, the story will change based on your decisions - and will feature multiple endings to the narrative before the outro.

Read the rest of the story...

The Company of Heroes 3 pre-alpha has been modded so you can play as Germany

It's been over a week now since Sega and Relic revealed that they were working on Company of Heroes 3. Even though the RTS games' release date is set for late 2022, Relic has released a pre-alpha build for players to test out. Provided you sign up for a Relic account and you meet the hefty system requirements, you've got until August 2 to have your fill with a slice of content from the Italy campaign.

If you're someone who's played the build to death and are looking for one last hurrah before the testing period ends, you're in luck. One intrepid fan has managed to 'mod' the build so you can play as Germany. User Miko has opted not to share the exact specifics of what they did to unlock the Germans, but they have shared several versions of an edited save file that anyone can download and put into their game to try out for themselves.

As far as we can tell, these save files only let you load into a tactical battle and don't involve the campaign map. You will need to at least start the campaign once before you use these files, as you'll need to put them in specific folders. The exact file location is in the initial post of the linked thread.

Read the rest of the story...

Company of Heroes 3 - release date, pre-alpha, and everything else we know

Company of Heroes 3 has been announced, although the release date is a long way off. Mirroring the work Relic is doing with the Age of Empires community, the team working on the new Company of Heroes entry have been collaborating closely with fans to make this a sequel worthy of the series' storied legacy.

That's why it's already been in development for four years, why the pre-alpha is being given out to people right now, and why we're over 12 months from any kind of release window, according to Relic. Still, there's plenty to talk about regarding the game while we wait, so we've created this guide as a running resource of all of the most important bits of information currently doing the rounds.

We'll keep this updated as time goes on, but for now we'll focus on what we know about Company of Heroes 3's release date, the pre-alpha, and anything else we feel is important. The campaign layer especially is a bit unprecedented as far as the Relic's history goes, so there's a lot of potential there, as well as a lot of unknowns.

Read the rest of the story...

Can't get into the Company of Heroes 3 pre-alpha? Here's the RTS layer in action

Company of Heroes 3 is real, and we couldn't be more excited. While a lot of attention has been lavished on the brand new campaign layer, Relic and the series in general are known for tight, tactical RTS games and there's plenty to celebrate there as well.

But while the WW2 game's pre-alpha is available to play right now, if you don't have the right system requirements you may struggle to even get the build running to see how things are shaping up for yourself. There's the gameplay teaser, of course, but that's more stylised. Luckily for you, there's a Plan B. Starting today, Relic will be releasing some tutorial videos to help people get to grips with the demo.

One video - which will go live later today - shows off the RTS layer and is in the pre-alpha build itself, although you can skip it if you want to. It uses footage from the build's first tutorial mission, which tasks the player with taking control of an Axis airfield. You can see the current version of the UI, new mechanics such as hot-breaching units out of garrisoned buildings, as well as tactical pause in action, among other things.

Read the rest of the story...

Company of Heroes 3 will "deliver the biggest and best" entry to date

There is only one word that can adequately describe Relic's strategy with Company of Heroes 3: ambitious. Whereas the studio seems intent on recapturing past glories with its approach to Age of Empires IV, this new Company of Heroes is pushing almost every boundary in an attempt to give fans a modern and exciting sequel. It is trying to follow in the footsteps of one of the most popular strategy games of all time, after all.

This has manifested in a number of bold design decisions. Firstly, CoH3 is hitting the Mediterranean hard. This will include the popular North Africa campaigns, but it will also mean Italy. Very few war games bother with the allied invasion of the peninsula, which knocked the Italians out of the war in 1943, and yet the core of the pre-alpha build focuses on exactly this.

The only real disappointment here out of the gate is that, currently, Italy isn't really represented in the game. During our play test we brushed against mechanics for insurgents and partisans, and to be fair Italy did capitulate quite quickly after the allied landings. The Wehrmacht soon took over, disarming most of the Italian military and reducing their presence in battle overall. The Allies made great use of Italian partisans, which is why they play a major role in this part of the campaign.

Read the rest of the story...