“Second World War strategy titles typically tend to be dull history lessons in disguise,” Computer Gaming World complained in October 2005, introducing a game that promised not to be one. Relic Entertainment’s lead designer, Josh Mosqueira, wanted the “visceral cinematic experience” of Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers in a real-time strategy game. When Company of Heroes came out a year later, Edge agreed that he had found it: “It is tightly balanced, technologically impressive, rarely dull and constantly challenging.”
What made it different was what the soldiers did on their own. Ordered across a field, a squad did not walk across it in a line. It ran from wall to ditch to crater, taking cover as it went, and a barrage could knock the wall down.
Fast facts
- Developer: Relic Entertainment, Vancouver.
- Publisher: THQ.
- Released: September 2006, for Windows PCs.
- Sides: the United States Army and the German Wehrmacht.
- Campaign: Normandy in 1944, told from the American side.
- Engine: Relic’s Essence engine, with Havok physics.
- Expansions: Opposing Fronts (2007) and Tales of Valor (2009).
- Sequels: Company of Heroes 2 (2013) and Company of Heroes 3 (2023).
Soldiers who take cover
Relic had come to the Second World War from Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War, which Edge reported had “quietly” become “the number one choice of the online RTS community”. Edge called Company of Heroes “that game, squared”.
The infantry made the first impression. “Units take it upon themselves to take cover on the battlefield, lay down suppression fire, and flank the enemy,” Computer Gaming World reported from Relic’s early demonstrations; squad leaders shouted orders and used hand signals, and frightened troops panicked. Relic gave each unit more than 2,000 animations. Machine guns and flak emplacements could “pin” enemies down, and pinned troops “duck their heads and refuse to move until their commander clears a path.”
Facing mattered as much as cover. Machine gunners, mortar teams, snipers and anti-tank guns had to be pointed in a direction, and “if they’re flanked, they’re dead,” wrote Edge. Tanks were the same: “a round will bounce off a Tiger’s front armour, but put a hole in its side.” Holding down the mouse button turned a tank to face the enemy with its strongest armour.
Ground that changes
Relic’s new Essence engine, with Havok physics, was built to break things. “Everything on the map is destructible,” Computer Gaming World reported, and a burned-out building did not simply vanish: it collapsed according to where it had been hit and how hard, and the wreckage became new cover. Tanks could drive through walls and knock buildings down. Edge’s preview described “a stupidly explosive battlefield – where cover appears from blown apart houses and craters and where every minute a change in the terrain in front of you provides an opportunity to exploit.”
Fighting for territory
Company of Heroes had no gold mines or harvesters. Each map was divided into sectors with control points, captured by infantry or, with the right upgrades, by light vehicles. Each point supplied manpower, munitions or fuel, but only, Edge explained, while it was connected to the rest of the player’s territory, “in-supply”. “Smart players will use this to cut their opponents off at vital moments.”
Reception
Edge gave it nine out of ten in November 2006. Its one complaint was “the thin side selection”: only the Americans and the Germans, with other nations “presumably waiting off-map, to be called in for the inevitable expansion packs”. The single-player campaign, fought through Normandy towns such as Carentan, was “long, violent and exhausting – as the setting demands”.
Expansions and sequels
The first stand-alone expansion, Opposing Fronts (2007), added two new sides, the British and the German Panzer Elite, each with its own campaign. Tales of Valor followed in 2009.
Then THQ went bankrupt, and in January 2013 Sega bought Relic at the auction of THQ’s studios. The sequel had been announced the year before, and Edge reported that the announcement brought 15,000 players back to the original game in a single weekend, six years after its release, a record that crashed Relic’s servers. Company of Heroes 2 (2013) moved the war to the Eastern Front, which Relic said had always been players’ most requested setting, with winter levels in which troops leaving the roads sink into deep snow. Company of Heroes 3 followed in 2023. Wireframe noted in 2021 that Relic had spent years showing early versions to a group of 70 dedicated players and taking their advice.
Sources
- Ryan Scott, Computer Gaming World issue 255, October 2005, pp. 48–49: preview (Josh Mosqueira’s aims, cover, suppression and flanking, hand signals, 2,000 animations per unit, the Essence engine and Havok physics, destructible buildings, the moviemaker tool).
- Edge issue 167, October 2006, p. 31: preview (THQ and Relic; Dawn of War’s online following; “that game, squared”; control points for fuel, munitions and manpower; cover, pinning, tanks through walls and facing).
- Edge issue 168, November 2006, p. 86: review (release on 29 September; supply lines; flanking and armour; the two sides; the American campaign and Carentan; nine out of ten).
- Edge issue 243, August 2012, p. 80: Company of Heroes 2 preview (15,000 players and the server crash; the Eastern Front as the most requested setting; troops slowed by snow).
- Wireframe issue 54, August 2021, p. 26: Company of Heroes 3 and its 70-player council.
- Sega Retro, “Company of Heroes”, “Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts”, “Company of Heroes: Tales of Valor”, “Company of Heroes 2” and “Company of Heroes 3” (web, secondary): release dates and publishers. https://segaretro.org/Company_of_Heroes
- Wikipedia, “Company of Heroes (video game)” (web, secondary): the Normandy campaign, and Opposing Fronts’ British and Panzer Elite factions. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Company_of_Heroes_(video_game)
- See the Relic Entertainment entry for THQ’s bankruptcy, Sega’s purchase of Relic and Company of Heroes 3.