Company of Heroes 3 – Steam – the epic WWII real time strategy returns with improvements

Company of Heroes 3 has brought the famous real time strategy back into the fold. It has a strong multiplayer focus, with better balancing and a longer mid game, meaning that it takes longer before the heavier tanks like the Sherman and Panzer IVs make an appearance on the battlefield. Given the time frame being 1942 to 1943, it makes complete sense that there aren’t tanks like the Tiger Tank II, Pershing or ISU-152 in this time period.

The German campaign involving the Deutsches Afrika Korps (DAK) takes place during WWII battles in North Africa

Highlights	The multiplayer is a highlight, because the developers have managed to draw out the mid game before the heavier tanks enter the fray and it makes for more strategic and tactical plays where mid game play is important if players want to utilise the heavier tanks effectively
Cost	A$79.95 on Amazon
Website	companyofheroes.com/en/

Single player is alright, but isn’t innovative

There are two different kinds of single player campaigns, the standard mission-by-mission campaign following the Deutsches Afrika Korps (DAK) campaign in North Africa and the exploits of Erwin Rommel and the Civilization / Total War-like campaign following the British and American forces in Italy.

The Deutsches Afrika Korps (DAK) has some interesting missions where the Germans are required to win with their smaller numbers and resources. The campaign manages to show how difficult it was for the Germans to fight the British in North Africa. There were some difficult missions and were good ways to introduce me to this new German/Italian faction. However, the campaign’s story of the North African inhabitants isn’t appealing nor interesting.

The Deutsches Afrika Korps (DAK) on the defence with the mighty Tiger Tank in tow

The British and American campaign is more dynamic and offers some freedom of choice. It looks and seems quite impressive, but the issue is that the whole campaign doesn’t feel polished due to the many bugs and question-marks about what things do. The campaign offers some set missions, but many of the other battles are just skirmishes against a pretty poor AI. The campaign wasn’t as interesting or rewarding as I had hoped.

A multiplayer battle with a lot of messiness and a ton of armor at this stage of the battle

The multiplayer aspect is where the most fun can be found

Despite there needing more polish, I found the multiplayer to be the best part of Company of Heroes 3. Sure, the game could look nicer and some of the effects and sounds aren’t up-to-par with the finished states of Company of Heroes 1 and 2, but I haven’t encountered many connection issues nor game-breaking bugs. In fact, I’ve had a blast meeting my foes on the multiplayer battlefields as both the Allies and Axis.

All the forces have their strengths. I prefer the Wehrmacht because of its generally good abilities and better units. I like being able to call in the heavier tanks like the Tiger Tanks or Panther Tanks at the right moment and just being able to control sections of the battlefield with an array of specialised units – given the Wehrmacht’s generally defensive capabilities.

My least favourite has been the British, because their infantry don’t have effective counters to either the Wehrmacht nor DAK and they are underwhelming with their mid game vehicles and tanks.

It is great that the developers managed to make the following improvements: machine gunners aren’t overpowered with their ability to suppress in this iteration, tanks can take a few more hits before taking a bow, and players that blob their infantry are punished severely.