'Company Of Heroes 3' Is Official; Here's What To Know

Relic has revealed the third game in its acclaimed WW2 RTS series “Company of Heroes,” featuring more of the same explosive, action-packed battles in a new theater of war along with completely new features that fans of grand strategy games will surely love.

“Company of Heroes 3” stays true to its roots as an RTS with a heavy emphasis on tactics. Recently released game footage, courtesy of IGN, showed that the game retains much of what made the first two series entries enjoyable.

Players will take control of infantry, armor and other support elements in Relic’s trademark territorial control style of gameplay. This time, players will be fighting in the Mediterranean theater of war, featuring units of the U.S. Army supplemented by British Forces and Italian resistance fighters against German defenders.

Gameplay will have a mix of both old and new combat mechanics, including realistic tank armor, infantry building breaching and improved high-ground and line-of-sight interactions. This will make “Company of Heroes 3” the most tactically demanding experience out of all three games.

Additionally, the game will have a new tactical pause feature to single-player game modes, further emphasizing the need for proper tactics and perfect execution.

The game will run on an updated Essence engine that will allow for more detailed units, better effects and a vastly improved environmental destruction system that can shape battlefields according to a player’s whims.

Perhaps the biggest change coming to “Company of Heroes 3” is the new Dynamic Campaign map. Instead of using the old linear model of campaign storytelling, Relic decided to implement a campaign map similar to the “Total War” series. Players will get to manage their armies as they advance toward the Italian countryside, creating forward bases and crippling enemy supply lines while protecting their own.

This new sandbox-style campaign offers immense replayability while giving players an unprecedented level of freedom to play the game however they want. This also adds a new layer of macro-strategy that has never before been seen in a “Company of Heroes” game.

In this grand-strategy-style campaign map, players will get to employ partisan spies, order aerial or naval bombardments on key targets and deploy rear guards to protect an army’s advances, among many other features.

“Company of Heroes 3” is currently in a tester-only pre-Alpha. Players can join the early test by applying for the COH Development Program.