In this review we will get to know and analyze the new title developed by Relic Entertainment, Company of Heroes 3
It has now been ten years since the release of Company of Heroes 2; ten very long years for lovers of the saga who have been waiting for a new chapter that would allow them to dive back into the battlefield. Finally the time has come and the developers of Relic Entertainment they have finished their work. But how will this title have behaved on our PC? Let’s start this Company of Heroes 3 review and let’s find out together.
Renewing the usual RTS
The Company of Heroes saga is one of the most popular in the genre of RTS (Real Time Strategy). For years players have battled it out on the numerous maps, conquering territory after territory and defending those they had from possible enemy offensives. However, something has been brewing for some time and important news has also arrived with the new chapter.
The first concerns the number of campaigns and the number of factions present. Contrary to what happened in the previous chapters, in fact, we will be able to immediately play two campaignsone set in Italia and the other in nord Africaand we will have four armies: US Forces, Wehrmacht, Afrika Korps e British Forces.
The most important of all, however, certainly concerns the adoption of a game mode very similar to that of the Total War saga. Although the basic mechanics of battles fought on maps divided into territories to be conquered has remained almost unchanged, the developers have also added a general strategy map in which we will move our troops following turns. But let’s go in order and let’s have a moment of clarity.
Preparation Rounds – Company of Heroes 3 Review
The general strategic map and the shifts, as we have said, are very inspired by the Total War saga. This is the basis from which the whole campaign that we are going to face will develop. Taking the Italian one as an example, once we have passed the prologue we will initially find ourselves near Salerno and from here we will have to start the liberation of the peninsula controlled by the Germans.
Such an approach poses us multiple choices and will allow us to act as we see fit. We will therefore be able to free Naples first and then head east, or do the exact opposite. Although there is a lot of freedom, the developers have also set some goals to meet.
So there will be some main assignmentswhich will allow us to advance in the campaign and along the entire strategic map, e other secondary, often to be concluded in a certain number of shifts, which will give us important benefits. To complete them we can use the compagnie. Therefore, the individual units will not appear on the map, but these will be represented all together, and then grouped, into a single army. Each of these will be able to move in a certain range before running out of i movement points and go through.
The companies – Company of Heroes 3 review
As we said, each company will have a limited number of movement points and this will be influenced by the conformation of the territory. Attacking an enemy, city, or upgrade instead, it will put an end to the movement of the company after the fight. Roads will allow for greater movement, but they will leave us without cover; on the other hand, instead, the forests they will hide our companywhile hills and small urban centers will contribute to increase defense of the same.
Movement and vitality of the companies will be also affected by the amount of supplies we receive at every turn. The lower this number is, the greater the penalty we will receive both in movement and in the automatic resolution of fights. Furthermore, staying for too many turns inside an opponent’s territory it will wear down the companies that will lose life over time.
In addition to the armies we will be able to control also naval units and aircraft. However, combat can only be carried out using the former (regardless of whether it is simple infantry or armored vehicles), while the others they will serve as support in case of battle or they will serve to destroy the enemy defenses during the turn-based phase. Ground troops are useful not only for defending and attacking, but also for build upgrades in conquered areas. These will weaken opposing troops if they run past them.
Each company will unlock gods skill points fighting; these can be used for: the purchase of support skills and it unlocking of units e upgrades. All three will come in very handy during the actual combat phase, allowing us to resist powerful assaults or annihilate units while suffering the least number of losses.
Cities – Company of Heroes 3 Review
As mentioned above, there will be various cities on the map to be conquered in the order we prefer. These are divided into port cities, fuel/ammunition depots and hospitals. Hospitals and warehouses, as can be easily guessed, will be used for take care of companies e increase the number of resources we will receive per turn. Cities that increase the number of supplies, on the other hand, are marked with a special symbol on their name. By conquering the latter we will increase the supplies of each company.
Port cities, on the other hand, are the most important ones of all. In addition to providing a direct link to land supplies, they will also serve to buy the companies and the ships that we will need. They will also serve to raise the population limit e they provide manpower. In the map there are then also partisan citiesvery useful for weakening enemy companies and cities through the appropriate skills, e airports in which we will be able to embark troops and create various planes.
The conquest of a city can be more or less long depending on its resistance and its “value”. To capture some of these it will be enough for you simply stick with your company. Others will be equipped with one or more shields which can be broken attacking with one or more companies (in the second case we will take fewer shifts), using the skills of partisan cities or simply bombarding them with ships and planes. Skills and bombardment, however, require resources before they can be activated.
Different Ways to Fight – Company of Heroes 3 Review
The speed with which we will conquer a city does not depend only on the number of shields, on the companies employed or on how much we have bombed them. There are some that can be conquered directly, once the shields are destroyed, for the others instead we will have to fight directly. These are marked by the words “Skirmish” o “Mission” placed directly on the name of the same.
In this case we will be sent, from time to time, to smaller maps and we will find ourselves at the head of our units. From the point of view of combat there have obviously been no epochal revolutions, also because the starting point was quite solid. After all, Company of Heroes wouldn’t be what it is today if it wasn’t one of the best games from this point of view.
The skirmishes involve the conquest of various territories o points of interest to be won. The more territories you have, the faster your opponent’s score will drop. Some are also designed for the annihilation of the adversaryas the bar will go down only if we eliminate the enemies. The missions, on the other hand, are characterized by specific maps which provide for set goals to be metunder penalty of losing the fight.
The battles fought between two companies instead can be resolved automatically, although it is advisable to fight them personally. Once the victory is achieved we will return to the general map e we will unlock various rewards. Some missions and ways of acting allow the accumulation of “Fidelity” to a certain character. The higher this level is, the more rewards we will receive from that character.
A fluctuating technical sector – Company of Heroes 3 review
Moving on to the more technical side, it is important to underline that The game was tested on a PC that greatly exceeded the recommended specs by the developers and, in the course of our experience, we have not noticed no performance or crash issues of the game. This, while not implying exemplary optimization, does let us know that the title is solid and well structured.
Let’s now consider the graphic side of Company of Heroes 3. The maps, starting from the strategic one and ending with the individual maps of each city, they are well designed and you notice a texture improvement with the previous chapters. There is a good characterization of the environment which the developers have tried to reproduce.
Although there is a repetitiveness of the models of the elements (architectural and otherwise), this is not as annoying as one might believe but, on the contrary, manages to create unique maps that remain well etched in memory. Plus we really enjoyed both the way buildings crumble under the blows of the artillery and the various cannons of the tanks, and how plants catch fire until they crumble to dust when using flamethrowers.
Therefore, although the maps in general are well structured and implemented, a different story must be made for the units. It just seems like that there is not a step forward as for the models mentioned above. True, the units that fought in those years are the same and cannot be changed. However we would have preferred greater care from this point of view e some improvements compared to the almost completely similar models to CoH2.
Me too’HUD has not undergone major changes, remaining almost the same as that of the previous chapterexcept for some minor changes. We don’t know if the developers wanted to give a sense of continuity or if they preferred to focus on something else, though some tweaking should definitely be done. Nothing to complain about the audio sector, with sounds very faithful to the real ones and general warnings audible very well even when the attention is maximum.
A not too revolutionary revolution
We have reached the end of this review regarding the PC version of Company of Heroes 3 and it is therefore time to sum up a bit. The new title from Relic Entertainment follows the path traced by the previous chaptersalthough it differs for some innovations introduced. There is no revolution in the true sense of the wordbut the breath of fresh air brought by these changes it seems to work perfectlygiving new impetus to the world of RTS.
These are not absolute innovations, mind you. In this way, however, it goes to break the rhythm of the intense battles one after the other, allowing the player to “recharge the batteries” before the new fight. All of this transforms for the user into hours and hours of gameplay glued to the screen, with time passing without even realizing it. Like this then the campaign mode is completely revolutionized,…