Company of Heroes 3 Preview: North Africa campaign played

Company of Heroes 2 was released almost ten years ago. However, the developers at Relic Entertainment are in no hurry to release a sequel. It was only in October that the date for Company of Heroes 3, which was actually scheduled for this year, was postponed to February 23, 2023. Diligent work is an important pillar of development for the team. The makers have been doing this for five years now. When work on the game began in 2017, a “player’s first” strategy was followed from the start. The fans were involved in the development processes early on via a community council founded in the same year, and more than 50,000 players were asked about the future of the brand.

This close collaboration resulted in the first playable pre-alpha in summer 2021. You can read our impressions of it in the preview from back then. Since then, another year of fine-tuning has been added. To catch up a few months before release, the developers at Relic and publisher Sega invited us to a preview event where we spent hours playing Company of Heroes 3 (buy now €89.99 / €56.99 ) spent. In addition to the well-known dynamic Italy campaign, we took a look at the North Africa campaign for the first time.

More of everything

But before we get hands-on, let’s hear a presentation from Executive Producer Steve Mele and Relic Vice President David Littman. Among other things, it is important to them to make it clear in advance that the long development time has had a positive effect on the scope of the entire game. Company of Heroes 3 aims to offer the largest base game in the series. So this time there will be two campaigns that will have a playing time of more than 40 hours. With 52 cards, the offer of the predecessor is more than doubled. Increasing the playable factions from two to four also increases the number of units to a staggering 120. There were only 42 in Company of Heroes 2!

Company of Heroes 3 preview. (7)

Source: Sega

The developers don’t just make everything bigger. Rather, they are based on a design philosophy of the legendary Sid Meier. And he once said that a sequel should consist of 33 percent established systems, 33 percent improved features and 33 percent brand new mechanics. The new ideas in Company of Heroes 3 include, among other things, a tactical break that allows commands to be issued without time pressure. Also new is that infantrymen can now ride on a tank. The steel behemoths also have a more detailed armor system that takes side hits into account in addition to the well-known differences between rear and front armor.

Also new is the integration of the Italy campaign into a turn-based strategy map. As we are used to from games like Total War, we first move our units on a large map, request reinforcements and make important decisions about our course of action. For example, the British and American commanders always make different suggestions for future goals and the player’s decisions affect the relationships with the nations. If two armies meet, it goes into the usual real-time battle.

Through the dessert

Since we already dealt with the dynamic Italy campaign in the last preview, this time we are concentrating on the North Africa campaign. This is a classic campaign that follows a linear narrative. As a player, you take command of the German Afrika Korps in 1942 and receive orders from Erwin Rommel. The story is told in cinematic cutscenes, which unfortunately we are not allowed to show as they are not finished yet.

In addition to the Afrika Korps, the plot also deals with the experiences of a Jewish Berber and the effects of the German occupation of Benghazi on his family. In this way, the developers want to combine the story of famous battles such as the Siege of Tobruk and the Battle of El-Alamein with human fates of the North Africa campaign, which is otherwise unknown. The North Africa campaign will also differ from the Italy campaign in terms of gameplay. The sprawling desert landscapes allow for more mobile and tank-centric tactics than hilly Italy.