Of course, if you bomb the cities with civilians, your contact in the French resistance will be pissed. Players have real freedom: get a plane and a squad of special forces into the same location and you can drop them behind enemy lines, snagging resistance bases and seaports so you can reinforce your push, or clearing anti-air emplacements so you can bomb enemy cities into submission.

This campaign is the main event for solo players, and it feels replayable. You can feel Creative Assembly’s input in the overworld and the army-based upgrades, and see the studio’s little fingerprints every time you use an ability or position armies with adjacency so you can call in American commandos to back up your British artillery regiment. The game’s dynamic campaign – a charming invasion of Italy as you batter the German war machine while levelling up your armies and fortifying your captured territory – owes more than a little to NME favourite Total War: Warhammer 3 and even had developers from that game work on it. Sink your teeth into Company of Heroes 3 however, and you’ll see the real depth behind developer Relic’s flashy presentation.

Layer on the fact that every map in the game is beautifully detailed and tactically interesting, and it’s hard to think of any RTS that looks better, that feels more immersive despite your eagle-eye view physically separating you from the battle. Every individual soldier in your units has their own animation, and this could mean you’re watching a single panzergrenadier in your squad stumbles slightly while running towards a capture point, or you’ll see individual soldiers in a heavy weapon squad keep watchful eyes on the flanks while the rest set up the heavy weapon itself. The red mist when a squad gets hit by high explosives and just stops existing is cool to the inner teenager but horrifying to the armchair general who has just realised a bad strategy (or sometimes a misclick) has condemned so many digital men to their deaths.Įven the murder is stunning. 30 Cal machine gun fire rakes the battlefield, pinning infantry under a withering hail of bullets. Tanks cook off with a burning roar, naval artillery thumps down over the battlefield and. Though World War 2 is a popular setting for RTS games, Company Of Heroes 3 has some of the best-looking battles in the genre.

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