It's been eight years since Company Of Heroes 2 came out, and now finally we have some news about Company Of Heroes 3. The third addition to the WW2-based RTS series is headed to PC next year, and will come the series' biggest campaign yet, as well as a new and improved tactical experience for long-time fans. You can read Nate's hands on preview impressions of Company Of Heroes 3 if you want meaty gameplay details, but we also had a chance to chat with some of the developers at Relic about bringing the old series back to life - and they told us that they want to keep players entertained with a new, non-linear approach.
]]>Relic’s resilient RTS series Company of Heroes looks like it’s getting a new game, or at the very least a new expansion. The developer’s Twitch channel has kicked off a 24-hour countdown, showing off a map centered on Italy, with a large slice of North Africa and Albania on either side. Overnight it has slowly zoomed in on Italy. We’re probably a few hours away from Company of Heroes 3, set in Italy.
]]>Relic used to make some absolute corkers, huh? They've finally found their way back in the spotlight with Age Of Empires VI, but if you were kicking about the RTS space in the 00s, they were akin to gods. Between Homeworld's space opera spectacle and Warhammer 40k: Dawn Of War's grimdark bombast, they somehow found time to make a little series of down-to-earth tactics games about the greatest tragedy in modern history. Company Of Heroes 2, the high point of their World War 2 operations, is free to download this weekend. Likewise, the rest of the wartime franchise has been cut to a quarter of the cost 'til Sunday evening.
]]>To celebrate Company Of Heroes 2's fifth birthday (its fifth birthday... six months ago?), Sega are giving Relic's World War 2 real-time strategy sequel away for free on Steam. Grab it by Monday and it's yours for keepsies. They did the same with its fourth birthday last year but it's still nice for people who didn't know CoH last year, or didn't know it well enough to be invited to its birthday party, leaving them in an awkward position when their pals start talking about antics from the party then go quiet when they remember you weren't invited. "It's fine," you said, "I don't know them that well." This year you do, my friend. This year you do. Get in.
]]>A whistle blows. Cracking rifles in the distance. The gentle thump of boots on snow. It all wakes you from a dream about granny’s marmalade. Oh no, you think, I’m still in the war. Squads of men are assembling for an inspiring speech. “Go and kill the other men using these bullets,” says the major, to the 80-150 assembled troops. A cheer rises up. This is it. The fear, the excitement, the courage of men with knives stuck to the end of their guns. Maybe, if you are brave enough, you can be part of this company…. of heroes… too.
Company of Heroes 2 is free today on the Humble store.
]]>Make War Not Love [official site] - Sega's cross-game point collection event which aims to stick it to Valentine's Day while also raising awareness of their games/rewarding fans - has returned for a fourth outing. This year it technically started on Valentine's Day but the real meat of the event kicks off yesterday and involves Company of Heroes 2, Endless Legend, Dawn of War 2 and Total War: Warhammer.
]]>Another Humble Bundle is offering friendly game-making tools for cheap. Following a GameMaker bundle last month, now they're back with the the Humble Clickteam Fusion 2.5 Bundle. As you might guess, the pay-what-you-want bundle is built around the game-making software Clickteam Fusion, also packing some games built with it - including Metroid 'em up Environmental Station Alpha, jumpscare 'em up Five Nights at Freddy's 3, multiplayer adventure The Yawhg, and citybuilding puzzler Concrete Jungle.
And now for something completely different: Humble also has loads of Company of Heroes games bundled up, celebrating ten years of the fine WW2 RTS series.
]]>In 2001, Band of Brothers was still airing on HBO and Canadian developer Relic Entertainment was finishing up development of Impossible Creatures, its freaky animal RTS. Space and sci-fi had been its muse for years, but it found, in the increased cultural interest in World War 2, another setting and the impetus for Company of Heroes.
Relic celebrated the game's tenth anniversary this month. It remains one of the most acclaimed RTS games of all time, lavished in 2006 with glowing reviews and heaps of awards. I’ll mostly remember it as the reason I got chewed out by a lecturer for dozing in class, after a long night of liberating Europe.
We’ve talked four of the original developers into taking a trip down a potholed, tank-lined memory lane with us.
]]>In celebration of the newly-released Company of Heroes 2 [official site] standalone multiplayer expansion I've written a poem. Like all good poems it rhymes, except for the part where I use a Spanish word because I ran out of rhymes. This is what gives it an 'international' edge and is evidence that I am a citizen of the world and not a bad poet.
]]>Focusing on the eastern front was a novelty for Company of Heroes 2 [official site], shifting away from the Brits and Yanks - who are hardly underrepresented in WW2 games - to the Red Army and their own fight with the Axis forces. You can't keep Brits out for long, though. They get everywhere. Sooner or later, they'll pop up and demand "Oi Ivan, gizza Bacardi Breezer, two WKD Blue, and oh yeah Sharon's been sick in your borscht pot."
Company of Heroes 2: The British Forces will bring us rabble into the fray on September 3rd. Costing £9.99, it'll be another standalone multiplayer expansion, not requiring the base game. A big update for all versions of CoH 2 is coming too.
]]>If we seem cynical and suspicious of the many Warhammer 40,000 games we've seen in recent years, it's because we judge them against the high-water mark of Relic Entertainment's 40k games. Dawn of War with its real-time strategising, Dawn of War II with its added action-RPG-ish flair, and Space Marine with its head-stomping are as good as we've had 40k in recent years. So huzzah! For the next week you can get the lot for just a few quid.
The latest Humble Weekly Bundle focuses on Relic, with a load of Dawn of War, Space Marine, and Company of Heroes games depending on how much you fancy paying. CoH is good too.
]]>"This Valentine's Day," reads a sign in my bank's window, "give the gift of buildings and contents insurance." The cornershop plan to only serve couples maintaining physical contact. I'm facing eviction as, in lieu of rent money, my landlord demands a sworn statement that I think I'm capable of love. In this wacky world, I'm not at all surprised that Sega are marking Valentine's Day with war.
Total War: Rome II and Company of Heroes 2 are both free for all to play this romantic weekend as part of some competition over free DLC. NBA 2K15 has a free Steam weekend trial too but it's unrelated to both love and murder so let's skip over it.
]]>The last we saw of Company of Heroes 2 was multiplayer expandalone The Western Front Armies, but what about people who prefer single-player? Don't they deserve expandalones? Aren't they inherently more alone? Hold your horses and hang onto your butts, dear single players, as Relic today announced Ardennes Assault, an expandalonealone for CoH 2 seeing US Forces fending off Germany's Oberkommando West during the Battle of the Bulge. Sure sure, 18 new missions, great, but also: troops are persistent across the campaign.
]]>Company of Heroes 2's main point of differentiation was that it took the original game's blend of bombast and squad tactics to the Eastern Front. What is it that therefore sets apart this new multiplayer-only standalone expansion, when The Western Front Armies does as its name suggests and replaces cold climes, Russians and Nazis with grass fields, Americans and yes still Nazis?
The expansion came out yesterday, and perhaps the answer is to be found in the live action launch trailer embedded below.
]]>I spent most of the weekend playing Wolfenstein: The New Sequel, which left me anticipating a robotic dog assault for the first thirty seconds of the Oberkommando trailer for Company of Heroes 2 multiplayer expandalone The Western Front Armies. I'm half-convinced that there's a zombie-robot soldier actually called the Oberkommando in Wolfenstein. Of course, Company of Heroes 2 has a more serious warface than Wolfenstein, even if the two trailers below (one for the US, one for the Oberkommando) do look like they've been plucked from a high octane shooter rather than an RTS.
]]>Company of Heroes 2: The Western Front Armies is a curious release. It's a multiplayer-only expandalone spin-off from Company of Heroes 2, but with two different armies--the new US Forces and Oberkommando West--and 8 new maps but still able to play on CoH 2 maps and against plain old CoH 2 players. But who's it for? Perhaps we'll answer that question come June 24, as publishers Sega have announced that's when it'll launch.
]]>"Doing anything nice this weekend?" the hairdresser asks, running their hands through your luxuriant quiff. "I'm actually heading out on a whistle-stop tour of battlefields on World War 2's Eastern and Pacific fronts," you reply, leaning back to press your scalp into their supple fingers as they gasp in respect and admiration, "and I'll have the cyber razor cut thanks."
Ho ho but while your haircare specialist now believes you're a big-shot billionaire history expert, you're merely planning to take advantage of the Company of Heroes 2 and Rising Storm free weekends on Steam. All and sundry can play Relic's RTS and Tripwire's FPS for two days, and they're on sale too. Later today a familiar voice will respond to your cry for reinforcements, as confident as mousse and warm as curling tongs, and you'll know: everything's going to be okay.
]]>As summer slowly creeps up on us, what we want is sunshine and dappled shade upon green grass, not ice and snow and muted tundra. Relic understand this, and are bringing Company of Heroes 2 to pleasant western Europe. The RTS is introducing new maps and armies from the western front in a standalone multiplayer release, due to arrive this June.
]]>The weekend's just over the horizon and I couldn't be happier. Well... except for one thing. I'm terribly afraid, actually, that my Friday, Saturday, and Sunday are going to be too tonally consistent. No wild mood swings. No spine-separating ups and downs. What a drag, right? So thank goodness that both Company of Heroes 2 and Saints Row IV will be free all weekend on Steam. The silliest game of 2013 and the most brutal front of the most serious war, er, possibly ever. I can't wait to cross all of my emotional wires - to giggle out world-weary tears and give stirring, morale-boosting war speeches laden with dick jokes.
]]>The trailer for Company of Heroes 2's most recent DLC ends on a sombre and slightly surreal note. Men trudge through mud, done down by the weather as well as the enemy. They are all fashioned from the same model, all have the same animation, cookie cutter quarry in a nightmare landscape. Intentionally or not, it's a scene that uses the apparent limitations of the character models to great effect and makes a refreshing change to the explosive way that war is often depicted in a short sales pitch. Edit: this isn't a sales pitch at all though - the DLC is free I misread the press release, sorry. The free part of the DLC includes two new multiplayer maps, base game improvements and Steam Workshop integration for maps made in the recently released World Builder. For three quid, you'll also receive several solo challenges and AI battles.
More Company of Heroes 2? Oh Relic, no, I couldn't possibly... Well, OK, if you insist. But just a couple spoonfulls and then-- *KA-WOMP* You just dropped a tank on the table. Yeah, I guess I should've seen that coming. Less expected but no less appreciated, however, are a map creation tool, two new multiplayer maps, and four new multiplayer commanders. All of it's free, too. Now could someone pass the salt? This stuff tastes a bit gamey.
]]>Company Of Heroes 2 launched burdened with quite a bit of day one DLC. I'm not even much of a CoH2 player, but I was offended by the really quite grubby attempt to sup up the pocket money for skins and the like. Some form of compensation has come with the release of free maps, so there's that. And look: today is a day for new maps, with a pair dropping onto the strategy game's chilly front for everyone. Hooray! Rostov and Kharkov will be arriving any minute now.
]]>Releasing a game that deals with one of a country's darkest periods is tantamount to walking on thin ice. Oh, sorry, did I say "walking"? I meant cannon-balling back-flipping onto it. In a tank. Some, then, have argued that Relic could've handled its depiction of World War II's Eastern Front with a bit more grace in Company of Heroes 2. And by "some," I mean thousands (via an Internet petition) rallying against what they perceive to be a serious "anti-patriotism" slant. As a result, Russian and Eastern European distributor 1C-SoftClub has halted sales of the otherwise decently liked RTS.
]]>The reason I'm not a financial advisor, an accountant, nor even allowed access to RPS's bank accounts, is because my understanding of money is thus: "Ooh, look at the pretty colours! I like the blue ones best! I'll swap you my pinks for your blues?" So it is that I look at Eurogamer's news that Sega is suing the not-existing-any-more THQ for £630,000 with only bemusement. It seems they want the Company Of Heroes pre-order cash from Steam.
]]>The wait for a new Company of Heroes game has been long and grim, with little else in the interim to satisfy the particular strategic itch that Relic's WWII game scratched so well. Now that Company of Heroes 2 has arrived, a new trailer provides an overview of the new features and despite the silly names of things like ColdTech, I can't help but be pleased by the fact that the inclusion of 'vaulting' warrants a slow motion closeup. For more information and oversight than even a thousand trailers could reveal, you could always check out Wot I Think, or simply scroll through the twenty-odd items of day-one DLC for a while. It is mostly cosmetic and I didn't touch any of it.
]]>The Western Front isn't as quiet as you may have heard from other sources but the Eastern Front is almost certainly a great deal louder. That's what Company of Heroes 2 would have you believe at any rate, with a flashy new engine and a great deal of clamour presenting its conflict. But does the long-awaited sequel add anything more than enormous flurries and drifts of snow? I donned my thermal underpants and went to war.
]]>The Company Of Heroes 2 open beta has been extended an extra weekend. This weekend, to be precise. And during it, they're unlocking a bunch more stuff to explore before the game goes live on Tuesday. And doubling earned XP. And giving away free bunnies!
]]>There's apparently a single-player demo of Company Of Heroes 2 out, but it must be obtained circuitously by installing the open beta via the Steam page. The demo mission will then be found on the main menu. It is reportedly "a mid-game mission called ‘The Land Bridge to Leningrad’ where the player will be asked to cross a frozen lake under heavy German fire." What a thing to be asked! No thanks, I'm going to stay here and cook some sausages.
]]>In open beta AS WE SPEAK, Company Of Heroes 2 doesn't miss out on the Having A New Trailer That Doesn't Show Much That's New E3 Party. Even though it comes out in only 13 days.
]]>The Company Of Heroes 2 beta has been ticking along quietly for a while now, but news has arrived announcing that the open beta will actually happen (for real) later today. The beta will then run through to the 18th of June, with the game coming out on the 25th.
The beta is for the multiplayer mode, of course, and provides for co-op and competitive (compo?) play on six handsomely snowy maps. The beta contains the first 45 levels of the game's progression and bulletin system, and if you play again on the same Steam account, having bought the game within sixty days of launch, then you get to keep all your unlocks and stuff from the beta period. Isn't that nice?
]]>Company Of Heroes 2 is the heart-breaking, tender story of the inner life of an explosion. This lonely detonation, who grew up on a battlefield outside of Somewhere Cold, Russia, had a special task ahead of him: to blow stuff up. The other explosions where just going to spray dirt and make noise, but this explosion was different: he was going to hit something that mattered and that something was going to blast apart into a million pieces.
And for a moment that explosion would feel at peace. He would feel happy. This latest trailer is a glimpse into that very special state of mind.
]]>After slip-sliding into June like a typically graceful, majestic tank suffering from momentary tread lapse, Company of Heroes 2's march to completion is fully back on track. If you weren't already aware, a closed beta's actually been humming along in the background for a couple weeks, largely with pre-order folks (I'm sorry, I can't use the word "pre-orderers"; there are too many rers) in mind. Now, however, there's another guaranteed front-door entrance to the war room. Keeping with the desperate, blood-spit-and-iron spirit of the Eastern Front, it's the most tangible symbol of the harshness of our times: Facebook. One simple "like," and COH 2 beta access is all yours. Yes, it's obnoxious, but the end actually justifies the means in this case.
]]>One of the many unhappy aspects of the death (sort of - the name still exists and I wouldn't be terribly surprised to see it return in some form later on) of THQ is that it had several projects really very close to completion when the axe fell. Foremost, perhaps, of those were Metro: Last Light and snow-bound WW2 strategy game Company of Heroes 2, but fortunately (we hope) both have found new homes. Metro's with Koch, and Company of Heroes 2 is with SEGA, as is all of Relic - making the house of hedgehog, who also own the Creative Assembly, an unlikely bastion of real-time strategy.
COH2 has a new release date - later than planned but not very far away. It is... Read the rest of this entry..
Nah, only joshing. It's in June this year.
]]>THQ is dead. Long live... er, not THQ. But its motionless remains haven't gone undisturbed. A number of major publishers descended, vulture-like, to make off with the choicest cuts money could buy. And also Homefront. Yesterday, however, we had no idea what exactly was next for the likes of Metro, Saints Row, Company of Heroes, Darksiders, and South Park. Sure, they've found new homes, but will they fit in? Or will they be forced to live in the cramped cupboards of neglect, with nary a wizarding school in sight? Well, it's still a bit early to say for sure, but - based on comments from each publisher - things are at least looking up.
]]>Update: Helpfully, reader and probable Prince of Handsomeness The JG Man dug up the court form outlining details (including amounts, back-up bidders, etc) of each sale. You can peruse that here.
Original: Well, I suppose it was inevitable. After THQ's attempt at averting a Humpty Dumpty sales situation failed miserably, the writing was pretty much on the wall. So now the grim reaper's scythe has hacked the once-gargantuan publisher into itsy-bitsy pieces and scattered any remaining ashes to the winds. On the upside, pretty much every major THQ franchise and developer (minus Darksiders dev Vigil, sadly) landed safely in less-likely-to-kerplode homes. Also, Relic and Creative Assembly live under the same roof now. Can Company of Shoguns: Total Homeworld or some other dream team RTS be far off? Probably. It's still kind of a silver lining, though, and anyway SHUT UP I'M SAD.
]]>Oh boy. Remember how things haven't been going so hot for THQ lately? If you've somehow forgotten, do you remember your name or any key facts about yourself? Have you hit your head or recently traveled forward to this time period? Are you an amnesiac, infant, or ghost? AT ANY RATE, we've finally reached the expected conclusion of this rather depressing series of events, but - as ever - there's a twist. In spite of how the word "bankrupt" - which is derived from the root "bank account ruptured and screamed in agony as warm monetary lifeblood erupted from its depleted tubules" - often connotates, THQ isn't doomed yet. Instead, it's merely employed some tricksy business maneuvers to dodge an avalanche of debt. For now, though, your favorite game series are safe.
]]>Company Of Heroes 2 is churning out the content at the moment. Alec recently got his hands on it, and Nathan had a chat with the developers to see where they may go next. And there's a lot of emphasis being put into its multiplayer. You can see how it's panning out in the brand new trailer, that's absolutely packed with in-game footage, below.
]]>Company of Heroes 2 is coming along marvelously, but let's be honest here: it's not exactly the departure one might expect from the company of game developers that made the brilliantly daring leap from Dawn of War 1 to Dawn of War 2. Instead, we're getting more of what we loved, but with small tweaks, a heaping mountain of snow, and the sobering realization that it's apparently not a good idea to joyride multi-ton tanks across nearly opaque films of ice. During an interview with RPS, however, game director Quinn Duffy said that Company of Heroes definitely isn't stuck in a tiny, World-War-II-shaped box. In the future, he excitedly explained, the series could potentially go "anywhere."
]]>Last week I got to sit down and make my hands do things in Relic's next strategy game, the Eastern Front-set World War II war of men that is Company of Heroes 2. While previously we've been shown frozen landscapes with dramatic new snow effects, this time I got thrown into the mud.
I was in a war, you know. A big war, with explosions and tanks and dug-outs and men with flamethrowers and men with mortars and men with machine guns and men with rocket-propelled grenades. It was awful. So I'm only too happy to go back to it.
In my couple of hours with Company of Heroes 2, I swiftly established that it is very much the sequel to Company of Heroes. Perhaps more so than I'd been expecting, given the action-RPG stylings of Dawn of War 2 was a sharp turn to the left from Dawn of War 1's tried and tested real-time strategising. Company of Heroes is Real War though, so a careful sticking to strategic roots is to be expected.
]]>According to the surprisingly sobering (and unsurprisingly incessant) Christmas jingles currently spewing out of every speaker-endowed device on Earth, the weather outside is frightful. And while a veritable barrage of slight breezes has indeed caused me tremendous hardship during my trips between warm places to buy $6 cups of coffee, I think perspective's important. For instance, soldiers on World War II's Eastern Front braved inclement weather that was nearly comparable to my own. Forecasters, I imagine, declared it snowy with a chance of bullet blizzards and mortar hail. Then they got run over by tanks. Company of Heroes 2, meanwhile, is aiming to recreate that particular horror of war, and it's looking like a pretty miserable time (at least, for your tiny popsicle army men) indeed. I bet their coffee was cheaper, though.
]]>From the Siberian news gulag at VG247 we received word that Company Of Heroes 2 got a gameplay trailer, complete with dakka boom and all those noises. Take a look.
Release is March 2013.
]]>Troubled THQ, as they must be sick of being called, have more bad news. Three of their biggest games have take a slip on this unseasonably early Wintry weather, with South Park, Metro: Last Light, and Company Of Heroes 2 all being announced as falling into the farther reaches of the future. But in better news - as Polygon spotted - it's confirmed that a new Saints Row is definitely happening, along with the mysterious game from Turtle Rock, and a Homefront 2 for some reason.
]]>At Gamescom, Relic gave me an article of clothing that says "I survived the Eastern Front" across the back in striking red letters. Considering I barely survived a stroll down the Brighton sea front a couple of months back because there was a bit of rain, it seems inappropriate for me to wear such a statement. I also lost to the AI during a skirmish game of Company of Heroes 2, my blood become ice, but that's because I wasn't really trying to win. Here's what I was doing instead.
]]>We sent Craig Pearson out to brave the icy storms of Company Of Heroes 2. Could he weather the assignment? Or would he find it a cool breeze? Snow problem, he said... He was shown the cold weather in the game, see, and quite what an impact it has on how you play. While he was there, Craig spoke to the game's director, Quinn Duffy, and lead animator, Brett Pascal, about the difficulties of portraying snow, the methods behind creating immersion, and dynamic ice.
]]>Remember how excited you were when we got two whole Company of Heroes 2 screenshots a couple days ago? Well, prepare to be roughly that excited again, because now we've got another two. That's still two more frames of actual gameplay than we got from spending time in the company of yesterday's trailer, though, so my anger tank can only fire so many shells. Regular tanks, however, can fire so many shells, as evidenced by the screenshots. And that makes me happy, only reducing the effectiveness of my wimpy rage cannons even more. Check out the other screenshot after the break for more madcap, happysadcap, rad backward cap action.
]]>I will forever be baffled by the trend of game trailers that opt to keep, you know, games almost entirely out of the spotlight. Next, I would like a film preview made up entirely of adorable puppy photos from this magical place and a book whose words are printed in alphabet soup instead of ink. Until then, though, I'll have to make do with war. World War II, specifically - a sequel in which we did, in fact, war harder. Right up until near the end, Company of Heroes 2's first official trailer is stitched together from old photos, dramatic cuts, and (admittedly jaw-dropping) statistics. It's nice and all, but perhaps we can see a bit more of Relic's not-too-shabby-looking game next time?
]]>Today is tank day! I've just decided. And now I probably won't find any other tank games to post about. Oh well.
I'll confess that THQ's ongoing money-woes have me fearing for the security of some much-anticipated videogames (and the good folk who make 'em), most especially Metro: Last Light and Company of Heroes 2. Hopefully Relic and 4A are ring-fenced from the cuts'n'terror at the besieged publisher, and the release of some new pictures of the former's Eastern Front battle still my palpitations somewhat.
]]>Continuing a mammoth discussion about Company of Heroes 2 with Quinn Duffy (game director), Greg Wilson (producer) and Matthew Berger (senior gameplay designer), this time around we consider the future of the series, despite the sequel not being out until next year. Once that's out of the way, it's time to discuss more of the research that went into COH2 and to reflect on Homeworld.
]]>After being shown a demo of Company of Heroes 2 at Relic's headquarters, we took the opportunity to sit down with game director Quinn Duffy, producer Greg Wilson and senior gameplay designer Matthew Berger, to find out more about what they have planned for the sequel. Then we talked about history, finding heroism in horror and brutality, and how too much balance can harm a game's other qualities.
]]>Looking back, I should have known it would be the Eastern Front. The entire world may well know by now that Company of Heroes 2 is in development at Relic, due for release sometime in 2013, and if they’ve paid any attention whatsoever they’ll also be aware that it’s set on the Eastern Front with a campaign beginning in 1941. What they don’t know is that we are among the few outside the studio who’ve already seen the game in action and right up until we entered the briefing room, we had no idea when or where it was set.
]]>Yes, Company of Heroes 2 is happening. We've even seen it! Adam went out to Relic and talked to the lovely folks who are making it. It's set on the Eastern Front, and it has a lot of snow. We should have an in-depth preview, in addition to interviews with the team, for your persual early next week. All will be revealed. It's going to be splendid.
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