Engineers are deadlier than ever thanks to their powerful flamethrower upgrade. Troops now hop deftly over walls and fences, and environmental destruction is better than ever, as buildings gradually deteriorate under fire before finally collapsing. Every encounter is rich with incidental detail, some tactical and some merely visual. Capturing points in order to control territory remains the order of the day. What unites all of these modes is Relic’s frenetic, visceral squad-level combat which returns largely unchanged from previous games. At launch, CoH 3 comes with four fully-fledged factions, two very different campaigns, and 14 maps of various sizes for skirmish and online battles. It is clear right away that this is a big game. In general, though, this is a fantastic return to the front and easily one of the best RTS games available.
Here and elsewhere, there are real rough edges in Company of Heroes 3. Where Relic have been less successful is in their attempts to do something different with the main campaign. It doubles down on the intense, small-scale battles for which the series is known and they are more tense and exciting than ever. Online and off, it will be immediately familiar to fans of the series but comes with a refreshing change of setting. With this long-awaited sequel, Relic have again focused more on refinement than on revolution. Now, they return with the most anticipated game of what promises to be an uncommonly packed year for strategy – Company of Heroes 3. Through their work on Dawn of War and recently Age of Empires, the Canadian company has become almost synonymous with the genre. While Creative Assembly and Paradox have kept grand strategy on the battlefield, Relic Entertainment have kept a tattered flag flying for traditional real-time strategy. For some time now, the fate of strategy games has rested on a few broad-shouldered studios.
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