We can safely say that Company of Heroes 3 is one of the most anticipated RTS of 2023, especially for fans of WWII-inspired games. Relic Entertainment made gaming history with the first Company of Heroes in 2006 and was recently eclipsed by the revival of another classic real-time strategy game, Age of Empires IV. Admittedly, I was a bit disappointed with the work of this last game, but my experience playing Company of Heroes for this review is very positive.
While the first two Company of Heroes took place on the Western Front after the Normandy landings and the Eastern Front of World War II, respectively, Company of Heroes 3 deals with the North African and Italian fronts between approximately 1942 and 1944. . The four playable fronts represent the forces involved in this conflict: American forces, British forces, the German Wehrmacht and the German Afrika Korps. Other nations that were historically involved are represented in a different way: the British can also rely on Commonwealth troops, including Gurkhas and Indian forces, while the Afrika Korps faction can request support from units and of elite Italian armour.
The game includes a traditional single-player campaign where you play as the Afrika Korps team, but one of the main new features of this game is the new “dynamic” single-player campaign. Playing with the Allies, the dynamic campaign map allows you to move units and capture colonies on a turn-based campaign map similar to Total War games. When a battle starts, you can choose to resolve it automatically or fight it yourself in a classic real-time battle. It’s obvious that Relic has gone to great lengths to make the gameplay multi-faceted, putting you in charge of an allied force landing in southern Italy with the ultimate goal of capturing Rome. Basically, you control corporations, such as the British Indian Artillery Company or the American Airborne Company. This argument gives you a dynamic set of goals.
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The story progresses based on the strategic choices you make. On the one hand, the American general who is eager to go into action and follow, and on the other, the British general, who is more cautious. Your objectives will depend on what advice you choose to follow, such as capturing adjacent regions first or immediately attacking a major port or airfield that could allow you to recruit other types of businesses. Later, the demands of the Italian resistance are added to make even more strategic decisions. The system makes the campaign dynamic and different every time, because every choice counts. You should also keep this in mind on the battlefield. At some point I decided to wait for a bombardment before attacking a settlement. The next turn, when I went into battle, the Germans had prepared positions. Clearly I would have played a different battle if I had jumped in right away.
The idea of a dynamic campaign is pretty cool, but sometimes I feel like I’m clicking things and going places just because I’m supposed to. Although visually similar to a Total War campaign map, Company of Heroes 3 doesn’t offer the same freedom to do whatever you want. As in the Total War games, the AI competition is very important. During a (planned) German counter-attack at Salerno, I was told to prepare for the worst. However, the German panzer company remained inactive alongside Salerno for a few turns. I ended up taking him out with summonable naval barrages, all in a quick auto-battle. This might be an isolated case, as at other times the AI would attack and retreat normally.
Therefore, I would not say that the dynamism of the campaigns is the strong point of Company of Heroes 3. The strengths of this game are the same as the series: real-time combat. In a characteristic system also used in Dawn of War, battles revolve around capturing key areas of the map. With these captures we will get manpower, ammunition and fuel to buy more units. Also, games are won by getting more victory points than the enemy side, which also depends on certain areas under your control. Base building is limited to building higher level structures to call in increasingly powerful units. This allows the pacing of the game to shift from early skirmishes to a point of (armoured) assaults in the mid-game, and finally to the specialist units that will decide the outcome of the battle.
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Victory on any of the 1v1, 2v2, 3v3 or 4v4 maps requires good balance. You have many different units at your disposal, each countering or enhancing another specific unit. You may be able to take a capture point with light infantry, but it will depend on what units your enemy sends to decide which reinforcement units you should use. In addition to machine guns, mortars and flamethrowers, you can build defenses using engineers. But your population will always have a limit, so you’ll always need to know what unit you’ll need, what technologies to research, and how to spend the points in the Battlegroup system, a new addition that lets you call in specialized units, as well as elite infantry or tank destroyers.
Playing against the AI in single player campaigns was not very difficult for me. However, in skirmish modes, I was struggling even against the AI on easy mode. There are a lot of things to do at the same time, like managing resources or finding the right units to counter. Many times I resort to machine guns to counter enemy infantry, when the enemy is already bringing armored cars. I imagine in multiplayer it’s very important that players are well matched by skill level, otherwise newbie players would struggle.
With the exception of Battlegroups, nothing I’ve mentioned is really new to Company of Heroes. However, many improvements have been made compared to Company of Heroes 2. Units move around the map without any problems, automatically jumping over obstacles. Armored cars now also have a side armor metric, making positioning more important. Guns can also be towed for easier redeployment, and infantry can mount tanks to reach new positions more quickly. In addition, the environment destruction system has been improved and can be clearly seen in the game. The shots of grenades, shells from tanks or artillery and moving vehicles leave very realistic marks on the field of battle. For example, if you shoot at the window of a house, only that specific window will be damaged. It’s these details that take Company of Heroes to another level.
As for the visual aspect, it should be noted that the new game engine focuses a lot on details and makes the units historically accurate. For example, we have the Indian infantry with turbans and the Italian Bersaglieri infantry with their characteristic black feathers. The visual aspect of the game is very entertaining, from the shots and explosions to the details of the houses, vehicles and units. Additionally, it is now also possible to break into houses to eliminate enemy infantry. This ability comes with a nice animation where your squad stands at the door of the building to force it open and enters shooting. It’s a real show.
Too bad the camera doesn’t let you play much with the zoom to get in or out of the action. Many times I wish I could zoom in more to get a glimpse of everything that’s going on. And one final complaint: the game’s background music is sometimes quite repetitive. It seems that he is quiet or keeps playing the same suspenseful music over and over again.
Company of Heroes 3 is a well-thought-out and visually appealing game that resembles its predecessors, but adds many improvements and a brand new Mediterranean-themed war arena. In the single-player game, there’s a lot more content than ever before, with an eight-mission campaign featuring the Afrika Korps in North Africa and a dynamic campaign featuring the Allies capturing Italy. However, in my opinion, the main reason to play Company of Heroes 3 is its great multiplayer potential. It will be quite a challenge to become one of the best in this online game and I hope the matchmaking takes into account the different skill levels. Either way, you’ll find some really nice units, lots of combat effects, and (destructible) scenarios to look at while trying to improve your skills.