Company of Heroes 3 Announced

Well, that crept upon us in a rather weird way, didn’t it? Which is also what most of Europe said about the early 1940s. Topical, as it seems you’ll be able to finally end that bloody war that Jack Churchill is once quoted as saying, “If it wasn’t for those damn Yanks, we could have kept the war going another 10 years!” Company of Heroes 3 was finally announced by Relic Entertainment on Tuesday.

The RTS genre really only has very few prongs to its fork, and sadly realistic modern-ish wars such as WWII and WWI aren’t top priority on many people’s lists. It is almost always one of three things: High fantasy, Roman to Middle Ages Europe, or anywhere between the Jin dynasty of China to Ming Dynasty. The last of which is admittedly a bit of a cop-out, being most of recorded modern history in China. The first Company of Heroes game was released in 2006, and set you up in command of the American forces during Operation Overlord. More or less, you were Dwight D Eisenhower, an important commander you might have heard of.

The second game pulled a bit of a weird twist, sending you into the memories of a Soviet Lieutenant currently in a gulag in Siberia. This time you’d be on the Eastern Front, something I’m told by Sergeant Schultz is going very poorly for the Germans. Then again, he does often follow that up with “I see nothing, I know nothing!” It seems next we’re heading south a bit, getting out of the cold and into the Mediterranean as we move on to Italy and Northern Africa. Possibly to end the damn German occupation of Europe.

The trailer (at the top) shows the very pretty cinematic depicting the allied effort with the help of local resistance, to recapture a coastal town in Italy in one of the most coordinated fights you’ve ever seen. If it wasn’t for the tanks and special regiments, you’d think it was a video of a Korean prison dancing to a Michael Jackson hit. Of course, that’s not what the game looks like, but we do know what it does look like in this pre-alpha state with the second video linked. The likes of IGN, Eurogamer, and Gamespot have gotten previews of the game.

However, if you are feeling a little left out of the Italian romp, stomping all over the Nazi forces holding Italy in the final days of the final years of the war, don’t despair. If you head over to the game’s site, you can currently sign up for a chance to play a bit of the “pre-alpha” yourself. Nonetheless, don’t expect to be getting your hands on the game so soon, well outside of the pre-alpha. Every source I can seem to find notes that it won’t release until late, 2022. This isn’t cause for crying, not yet before the inevitable delay, but there is a small wait while the game goes through development. Each source also noted similarities in scope with Total War, for reference.