Relic Entertainment, the freshly-independent developers of Company of Heroes, Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War and Age of Empires IV, have confirmed a number of job losses. The layoffs come just a week after the studio announced their sale from former owners Sega, returning them to independence after two decades.
]]>Don't look now, but we're almost halfway through 2023. How is that even possible? I hear you cry. Well, I'm not entirely sure either. The last time I checked it was freezing cold outside and the sun went down at 3pm, but here we are with long, sunlit evenings and that sticky sheen of an early, muggy summer. Or at least it's been quite clammy in the RPS Treehouse this month, as we've all been sweating over our favourite games of the year so far.
]]>Excellent real-time strategy game Company Of Heroes 3 came out on PC earlier this year, and now its console edition has arrived on yer Xboxes and PlayStations. Listen, I know such console talk is considered heresy around these parts, but our corporate friends/siblings at sister site VG247 are running a competition right now to win a custom Company Of Heroes 3 Xbox controller. Sure, you might not want to play Company Of Heroes 3 specifically with said controller, but controllers in general are useful things that we at RPS use a lot for playing other types of games, and hey, we thought you might want to know about it, just in case. You can enter here if you fancy your chances.
]]>Sega have laid off 121 employees working at Relic Entertainment, the studio behind Age Of Empires 4 and the Company Of Heroes series. Today's news comes three months after the studio released Company Of Heroes 3, although Sega points to the “external factors [that] are challenging our industry” as one reason behind the job cuts.
]]>Company Of Heroes 3 had rough beach landing, garnering mostly positive reviews from critics (like us) and mixed-to-negative reviews from players on Steam. Today's release of its first major update, titled Operation Sapphire Jackal, may help address that disparity given that it promises to fix "hundreds" of bugs in the base game. On the other hand, it also adds cosmetics - both those that can be unlocked for free and via spending real money.
]]>Looking for Company of Heroes 3 tips and tricks for beginners? Company of Heroes 3 is here and, with its predecessor having launched almost a decade ago, there might be many players who are jumping into this WW2 real-time strategy franchise for the first time. If you want to earn your medals and become a Company of Heroes 3 pro, but don't know where to start, then you're in the right place.
We're hoping these tips give everyone a broad overview of how to approach Company of Heroes 3, and that franchise veterans get a sense of the changes they can expect. For those entirely new to Company of Heroes, these tips should help you feel more prepared to take on the fights ahead.
In this guide, we'll break down 20 Company of Heroes 3 tips and tricks for beginners. We'll cover everything that we wish we knew when we started playing, which should give you a strong advantage in the fights ahead.
]]>Looking to learn more about the Company of Heroes 3 factions? Company of Heroes 3 has four factions available at launch, and each one has unique units, abilities, and playstyles. But choosing which faction to play is quite the complex task, as there isn't a clear in-depth explanation covering their differences in Company of Heroes 3 itself.
In this guide, we break down each of the factions in Company of Heroes 3. We'll explain what makes each of them special, so that you know which faction to pick when heading into a AI Skirmish or multiplayer battle. We'll also explain which faction we think is best overall, and which is better-suited to those new to the franchise.
]]>After the mud and forests of Normandy, and the grim, snowy climes of the Eastern Front, Company Of Heroes 3 feels like World War II on its summer holiday. With two campaigns spanning each side of the sunny Mediterranean, this is arguably Relic's breeziest and most colourful theatre of war yet, evoking the same kind of swagger and gung ho optimism as a Hollywood action flick. It's a feeling that might seem out of place given the current climate, especially now, just days away from the first anniversary of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. But while your main objective is always one of domination, gradually turning the map from red to blue on both a micro and macro scale, this is ultimately a game about searing comebacks - of beating back seemingly impossible aggressors, and finding hope where previously there was only despair. I think we could all do with a bit of that in this day and age, even if the battles before you end up feeling like nothing more than the digital equivalent of plonking down a big box of toy soldiers on your living room floor and going daka-daka-daka as they all fall over.
]]>AMD recently announced that certain Ryzen 5000 processors come with free copies of Company of Heroes 3, so if you're looking forward to the rather promising WW2 RTS, due to debut on February 23rd, this is a sneaky way of getting the game (normally £50) and a ~£100 processor for less than £100.
]]>War never changes, but sometimes the developers of esteemed WW2 real time strategy games need help checking their servers are set up OK. To wit: the Company of Heroes 3 multiplayer Tech Test just went live, giving you 'til 10am PT/ 6pm GMT on Monday to blow up some tanks. It's a good chance to try the game out for free.
]]>Happy New Year, folks! Crikey, there are a lot of games coming out this year, aren't there? When I first asked the team to put together their most anticipated games for 2023, I was thinking we'd have a reasonably sensible number of things we were all looking forward to, you know, somewhere in the region of the 43 games we highlighted at the start of 2022. Very quickly, though, it became apparent that, actually, there are simply loads of games the RPS Treehouse is personally excited about this year, and cor, it would be rude not to include every last one of them. I'll be upfront: there are a fair number of TBA games on here that probably aren't going to come out in 2023, but as ever, we remain hopeful and optimistic all the same. So let's dive in.
]]>The big Company Of Heroes 3 news from tonight's Game Awards was that, in addition to launching on PC on February 23rd next year, the WW2 RTS will also be coming to PS5 and Xbox Series X and S consoles in 2023 at a later date. The exact timing of the Company Of Heroes 3 Console Edition is yet to be confirmed, but it will mark the first time Relic's historical real-time strategy game will be available to play outside of PC. However, if you were hoping to get in on some PC / console crossplay action regarding the game's multiplayer, you may be disappointed, as publisher Sega confirmed to me today that they have "no plans to support crossplay between PC and consoles for multiplayer at launch".
]]>For the last six months, I've been slowly picking my way through Company Of Heroes 2 for the first time. I'm about halfway through its campaign at the moment, but the rhythm of calling up replacements and reinforcing my squads hasn't quite been engrained into my hotkey fingers yet. I keep making the mistake of thinking I can just push through with my remaining forces, but as any COH stalwart will know, that kind of road only ever leads to total disaster.
Imagine my surprise, then, when I came to preview the latest build of Company Of Heroes 3's dynamic, Total War-style Italian campaign and seemed to be, you know, actually making some pretty steady progress as I pushed up its mission maps. I was, admittedly, only playing the opening levels of this particular campaign, and I also had the aid of a handy M4A1 Sherman tank providing some welcome backup muscle. But during my four hours with it, I felt more in control of the battlefield than I've ever done while playing COH2. I was making excellent use of its reinforcement options, and heck, I was even remembering to tell units to retreat back to the nearest aid post so I didn’t lose the buffs they'd earned through their new EXP-driven promotions and veterancy bonuses. Then I played a mission from its more linear North African campaign, and had a very rude awakening indeed. Why, hello, frantic pressure and torrents of death bullets from Company Of Heroes 2 again, it's been a while.
]]>With two chunky single player campaigns and a sizable multiplayer component on the way, it's no secret that Company Of Heroes 3 is Relic Entertainment's biggest COH game yet. After playing a chunky new preview build last week, it's clear there'll be lots to dive into come release day on February 23rd. But when I sat down with vice president of production David Littman to talk more about their WW2 RTS, I was curious where their focus would lie after launch. While many love Company Of Heroes for its top notch campaigns, Littman told me they "still have over 400,000 players still playing COH 1 and 2 monthly" via multiplayer, which is impressive considering the last game in the series came out nine years ago. And when it comes to COH 3, Littman says they'll go "where the players are".
]]>Upcoming real-time strategy threequel Company Of Heroes 3 has been delayed to February 23rd, 2023, Sega and devs Relic Entertainment have announced. The game had been due to launch next month on November 17th, but Relic say they need extra time for "bug fixing, balancing, and polishing". This is all just tweaking time, apparently, as Relic have finished development of the game’s features.
]]>Relic Entertainment has announced that Company Of Heroes 3 will parachuting onto Steam on November 17th. They also unveiled new details about its second North African campaign this evening, which will offer a more traditional, narrative-led single-player experience compared to its more open-ended Italian campaigh, which was revealed last year. We had hoped to bring you more hands on details of this new campaign this evening, but in classic RTS fashion, things didn't quite go according to plan. Sorry about that folks. Here are the headlines instead.
]]>2022 is finally here and that can only mean one thing. We've got another year of hip new video games to look forward to, and we've been busy rustling up the ones we're most excited about. In truth, there are tons of games on the horizon that could easily sit on this list, and some of them are so close to release we can practically already see the pixels on our screens morphing into their lush, polygonal landscapes. Games like Monster Hunter Rise, God Of War and Rainbow Six Extraction. You won't find them here, but trust us, you'll be seeing a lot of them over the coming weeks.
There are always more games coming out than we have fingers to write about them, but the 2022 games we've listed below are the ones the RPS team are personally most looking forward to playing. We've got games big and small here, and they're all listed in alphabetical order. After all, release dates are increasingly slippery beasts these days. Think we've missed something? Why not take to the comments below and tell us all about it. You might just convince us to put it on our radars. But enough from me. Here are our 43 most anticipated games of 2022.
]]>While Company Of Heroes 3 isn't due out until next year, this week we'll all be invited to try a slice of the WW2 real-time strategy game's multiplayer. Relic Entertainment today announced a "multiplayer pre-alpha" will start on Tuesday, with several modes and maps to give a taste of battling across Italy for a few days. It'll be free, everyone is invited, and you can start pre-loading the client today.
]]>Ever since the pixellated rectangles of Dune 2 trundled into my world back in the early 90s, I’ve had a soft spot for tanks. I must have commanded millions over the last three decades of real time strategy, but in all that time they’ve not really changed much. A video game tank in 2021 might have a damage-reducing armour value, but it’s still essentially a box that snarls “yessir” when you click on it, and which functions perfectly until its hit points run out, whereupon it bursts. I want more complexity. I want tanks which feel like the messy, complex, cantankerous machines they are. And while there are many games which go well deep into simulating tanks, they’re largely not RTS games.
Among the extant tank-havers of the RTS genre, it’s probably Company Of Heroes 2 which lends the big metal lads the most personality. It makes Panzer Vs every bit the icons of fear they should be, while T-34s career about the place like the reckless, clattering have-a-go heroes they were. When Company Of Heroes 3 lands next year, we’ve been promised an even chuggier time, so I had a chat with the game's lead campaign director Andrew Deneault and lead mission designer Sacha Narine to find out more about what to expect.
]]>The Total War series are the Kinder Eggs of strategy gaming: a layer of delicious, map-based strategy, with a dramatic RTS toy hidden inside. It's a tasty formula, and I've often wondered why more games over the years haven't adopted it. I'm not alone in this: David Littman, executive producer at Relic Entertainment, always wondered the same thing. But then along came Sega, gulping down strategy studios like a big mad whale, and Relic ended up in its belly - right next to Total War devs Creative Assembly. So he asked them about it.
“Turns out,” says Littman, “it’s because it’s really hard to do”. So there you go. But Littman was not deterred. Working away in the leviathan's guts, with the famous motto of the SAS in mind - “You’ve got to at least have a go, even if it's really hard” - Relic learned from their fellow strategy Jonahs at CA, and set about applying the knowledge to their landmark WW2 strategy franchise, Company Of Heroes. Now, the Sega whale, she is a-rumblin'. Sometime next year in late 2022, she will belch up Company Of Heroes 3, and it will have a brand new, Total War-style campaign map. I've ventured down the whale's gullet to have a go, and I think it looks promising.
]]>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.
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