Company of Heroes 3 is a real-time strategy game and sequel to Company of Heroes 2. The game is set in the Italian and North African theaters of World War II, featuring new mechanics and modes. It was announced on July 13, 2021 and launched on February 23, 2023.
Gameplay[]
In Company of Heroes 3, the players take the role of Allied Forces during their invasion of North Africa and Italy. Italian Partisans are allied NPCs that can either be used on the map or be called in during battles. The story is dynamic, and the player's interactions with the game's various commanders can affect the narrative's ending.
Core Mechanics[]
All the classic core mechanics from the CoH franchise are back and better than ever. Below are some of the core features that will be making a return in Company of Heroes 3.
Immersive, Strategic Environments[]
- Flanking & Directional Cover: A core component to every Company of Heroes match is the use of cover to reduce accuracy and damage of incoming fire. Position your troops behind walls, foliage, vehicles, or any other type of heavy or light cover object to hold ground and defend territory. To root out a well dug in enemy, flank your opponent’s exposed cover positions to inflict the most damage and push them back.
- Garrisons: Infantry can garrison buildings on the battlefield to use as strong points and defend territory. An enemy garrison causing you problems? No big deal, destroy that building with artillery or breach it to remove the threat.
- Destructible Environments: The battlefield in Company of Heroes is an ever-changing landscape that evolves through player inflicted explosions and destruction. Turn beautiful, pristine vineyards and towns into piles of ash, craters, and rubble that can be used as cover, open new pathways, and reveal previously blocked Lines of Sight.
- TrueSight: The innovative feature of TrueSight from COH2 makes a return to Company of Heroes 3 with the new added component of Line of Sight blocking terrain. Use tall walls, hedges, buildings, and terrain to conceal your movement and ambush your enemy.
Resource System[]
Territory Capture: CoH’s classic territory capture system will be making a return with a throwback to the original Company of Heroes resource system design. Capture resource points such as fuel and munitions points to build more powerful units and use unique abilities, secure cut-offs to deny your enemy supplies, and finally capture and control Victory Points to defeat your opponent.
Strategy & Tactics
- Combined Arms: In Company of Heroes 3, players will need to use a combination of unique infantry, team weapons, vehicles, off-map support, and defenses to defeat your opponent. Each different type of unit has a unique role to fill, such as suppressing infantry with Heavy Machine Gun fire, assaulting garrisons with flamethrowers, softening defenses with mortars, howitzers and off-map artillery, penetrating heavy armor with anti-tank weapons, and spearheading enemy lines with armored vehicles. Only by using these components in orchestra can a player be successful on the battlefield.
- Squad Preservation: Two of the player’s most vital resources in Company of Heroes 3 are manpower and veterancy. The best way to maximize both is to keep your soldiers alive, healed, and reinforced. The strongest soldiers on the battlefield will be the veterans that know when to retreat and when to stay in the fight.
New Features[]
Height Gameplay[]
Verticality in terrain now plays an important role in Company of Heroes. Terrain is now both Line of Sight and shot blocking, making the player think more carefully about unit placement and facing. In addition, units with a height advantage also receive a combat bonus to their weapon accuracy and will negate an enemy’s cover bonus.
Breach[]
Breach is a new feature to Company of Heroes 3 that allows certain squads to clear an enemy from an occupied building. Flank a garrisoned enemy position and activate the Breach ability to take control of a strategic, defensive position.
Tactical Pause[]
Tactical Pause allows players to play the Campaign Missions and Single Player skirmishes versus the AI at their own pace. At any moment during a match, players can pause the game and take a moment to re-assess the battlefield, their current engagements and strategy. While paused, players can queue up all the same commands that can be done in real-time such as move /attack orders, abilities, build commands, etc. Once ready to resume the fight, simply un-pause the game and watch the queued commands unfold in real-time.
Side Armor[]
Armor profiles of vehicles in Company of Heroes 3 has been updated to now include side armor. This addition makes vehicle positioning and facing all that more important as exposed, weaker side armor will be an attractive target when flanking the enemy.
Destruction 2.0[]
Destruction in Company of Heroes 3 is getting a major facelift. In addition to significantly improved visual fidelity, destroyed buildings will now also have up to three different states:
- Shot and sight blocking: Similar to CoH2, the building will no longer be garrisonable but will also block shots, Line of Sight, and pathing
- Cover: The building will no longer be garrisonable but units can path through the destroyed building and use its ruined state as cover
- Flattened: The building will no longer be garrisonable but will not block Line of Sight, shots, or pathing
Recon System[]
Reconnaissance will play a much larger role in Company of Heroes 3 with specialized utility and recon units in every army. To help support this type of gameplay a new recon system has been designed to identify and track different unit types in the Fog of War.
Battlegroups[]
Battlegroups represent the next installment of the Command Doctrines from Company of Heroes 1 or the Commanders from Company of Heroes 2. In Multiplayer, Battlegroups will augment and supplement core armies with unique tools, units, upgrades and abilities.
Each Battlegroup is comprised of 10 Battlegroup Abilities and is split into two differently themed branches. Like Company of Heroes 1, players will earn Command Points via combat that they can spend to unlock abilities down each branch of a Battlegroup tree. Each branch will include exclusive choices. At these decision points the player will need to choose which ability they want to unlock for that battle, with the un-chosen ability locked for the remainder of the match. Below is a work-in-progress example of the US Forces Airborne Battlegroup and the linear unlock flow of the abilities in each branch.
Multiplayer[]
There are currently 4 playable factions in Company of Heroes 3:
- British Commonwealth - The Commonwealth Forces are intended to represent the British and the Commonwealth Forces that fought alongside the US Forces in the Mediterranean theater. The faction is designed to be a mix of defensive infantry and team weapons, fast and mobile light vehicles, and heavy armor that can soak up damage and incoming fire. They are a well-balanced army with a simple to understand tech tree that allows the player to choose the strategy that best suits their playstyle. This is by far the most offensive version of the British in the Company of Heroes franchise, with a well-rounded toolset and roster that should appeal to both casual and competitive players alike.
- United States of America - Company of Heroes 3’s US Forces is designed to represent the US armed forces that fought in the Mediterranean theater in 1943 through to 1944. The faction caters to an aggressive playstyle that benefits from superior production, weapon upgrades, mobility, and combined arms. Featuring a familiar unit roster while introducing new faction mechanics and an updated tech structure, the US Forces allows the player to be flexible with their strategy and adapt their tactics at each stage of a match.
- German Wehrmacht - The Wehrmacht in Company of Heroes 3 are designed to represent the German army pitted against the Allied Forces in Italy. The Wehrmacht benefit from superior defensive capabilities, overwhelming firepower, and elite training and experience to attempt to push the Allied Forces back into the sea. In addition to their strong defensive toolset, the Wehrmacht can also hit hard on the counterattack with a mix of elite infantry, superior armor, and heavy-hitting artillery. The Wehrmacht will feature a strong mix of familiar and new units, a more complex tech structure, and unique faction mechanics to ensure this army stands out as new, fresh, and exciting to play.
- Deutsches Afrikakorps - The Deutsches Afrikakorps are a highly anticipated addition to the Company of Heroes franchise! Known for their prowess in the North African deserts, this army is a mobile, mechanized force in its prime. To further cement its presence on the field, the Afrika Korps can call in additional support from its Battlegroups, requisitioning vehicles, artillery and infantry, such as the Italian Bersaglieri and Guastatori.
The multiplayer game mode is launching with no spectator and no replay functionality. This puts serious limitations on the game's potential as a competitive RTS. The planned spectator and replay functionality is expected to release several months post-launch and have feature parity with the 10-year-old predecessor, Company of Heroes 2.
Development[]
The game was officially announced in July 2021. The team chose the Mediterranean theatre as the setting allowed the inclusion of a variety of environments, which is a feature frequently requested by players of older games. In addition, the team added that the Italian areas in the game offered "broader palette for environmental gameplay" and players can make use of verticality of the maps to plan their moves and attacks.
At the beginning of development, the studio recruited people from the modding community and competitive players to form a player council. The council worked with Relic during preproduction to determine what the new entry should focus on mechanically and where the game should take place.
The executive producer commented on how it was chosen: "And we all agreed that we wanted a new theatre, we didn't want to revisit the Western Front or the Eastern Front. So really, the only two things left were the Mediterranean and Pacific. We put them both on the board, and it was just 10-0. Mediterranean over Pacific." Player testing for Company of Heroes 3 started in prior to the official announcement through Amplitude's Games2Gether program.
A demo for the game was available for a limited time shortly after the announcement.
Faction Units[]
United States of America[]
Headquarters[]
- Scout Squad (160 Manpower 4 Pop)
- Engineer Squad (200 Manpower 4 Pop)
Barracks[]
- Rifleman Squad (260 Manpower 7 Pop)
- 1/4 Ton 4x4 Truck (240 Manpower 4 Pop)
- M1 Mortar Squad (260 Manpower 7 Pop)
Weapon Support Centre[]
- M1919 MG Team (250 Manpower 7 Pop)
- Bazooka Squad (250 Manpower 7 Pop)
- Sniper (340 Manpower 8 Pop)
- M3 Armoured Personnel Carrier (270 Manpower 25 Fuel 6 Pop)
Motor Pool[]
- M8 Greyhound Armoured Car (280 Manpower 40 Fuel 6 Pop)
- M1 Anti-Tank Gun Team (250 Manpower 7 Pop)
- M24 Chaffee light Tank (320 Manpower 50 Fuel 7 Pop)
Tank Depot[]
- M4A1 Sherman Medium Tank (360 Manpower 90 Fuel 12 Pop)
- M18 Hellcat Tank Destroyer (320 Manpower 70 Fuel 10 Pop)
- M4/105 Sherman Bulldozer (420 Manpower 90 Fuel 14 Pop)
Battlegroup Units[]
- Special Operations battlegroup
- SSF Commando Squad (440 Manpower 10 Pop)
- M29 Weasel (240 Manpower 4 Pop)
- M4A1 Sherman Whizzbang (400 Manpower 100 Fuel 14 Pop)
- Armoured Battlegroup
- Assault Engineers (200 Manpower 7 Pop)
- M31 Recovery Vehicle (300 Manpower 45 Fuel 6 Pop)
- M8 Scott SPG (320 Manpower 60 Fuel 8 Pop)
- M4A3E8 Sherman "Easy Eight" (800 Manpower 120 Fuel 21 Pop)
- Airborne Battlegroup
- Pathfinders (200 Manpower 5 Pop)
- Heavy MG Team (250 Manpower 7 Pop)
- Paratroopers (320 Manpower 10 Pop)
- ANTI-Tank Gun team (250 Manpower 7 Pop)
System Requirements[]
| Minimum | Recommended | |
|---|---|---|
| OS | Windows 10 64-bit | Windows 10 64 bit |
| Processor | Intel i5 6th-gen / AMD Ryzen desktop processor with 4 cores @3GHz, or equivalent | Intel i7 8th-gen or AMD Ryzen desktop processor with 8 cores @ 3GHz or equivalent |
| GPU | NVIDIA GeForce GTX 950 / AMD Radeon R9 370, or equivalent | NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 / AMD Radeon RX 5600, or equivalent |
| HD Space | 40 GB | 40 GB |
| RAM | 8 GB | 16 GB |
