The alternative was the Pacific, which Relic was equally keen on, and the one-way result was a surprise.Īt the first "summit" the studio held with ten players, when a new setting was discussed all ten of the invited players unanimously voted for the Mediterranean and Northern Africa, in part because of what the history itself would mean for the gameplay. "Probably the most interesting" result, Littman says, was at the first "summit" the studio held with ten players, when a new setting was discussed and all ten of the invited players unanimously voted for the Mediterranean and Northern Africa, in part because of what the history itself would mean for the gameplay. Relic sent out around 500,000 emails to players and received about 60,000 responses, and then expanded that survey to wider strategy game players as well. (As an aside, when asked whether Dawn of War's on ice for the foreseeable future, Littman's response was "from a Relic standpoint - and a SEGA standpoint - it's a great franchise, and absolutely we're always looking to see what we should be doing next, Relic as a whole will just be looking at what games we want to be making, and everything's on the table".)īack to Company of Heroes 3, and the impact of the player involvement is remarkably strong. There's a difference between the two series, he notes - Dawn of War "had it a little harder", insofar as its audience is somewhat split between the two games, as the first and second are quite different, whereas Company of Heroes' fans generally like parts of both - but the point stands: things could have been different for Dawn of War 3 if the studio had gathered some feedback a little earlier on. "I think on DoW 3, it was a pretty good game - I mean, it's a fun game to play! It got reviewed, actually, pretty well - but the one thing we took away from that was: hey, you know, we heard some things from players after it was launched, and in the leadup to launch, and if we could have talked to them more, and really listened to what they were asking for, it could have made a difference in the way it was perceived." "Any time we release a game - any time any company releases a game - you have to do a post mortem and look at, you know, how was it received? And what was the experience for players? "That's absolutely part of it," says executive producer David Littman. On the surface, it seems like a pretty direct reaction to what happened with Dawn of War 3. It's set to launch some time in 2022, but you can sign up to play an early slice of it from today, as part of a "CoH-Development" plan that mirrors what other studios like Amplitude (also publishing through SEGA), have done with Humankind. Relic's response has been to do more or less the exact opposite with CoH 3, placing a very heavy emphasis on player feedback. It crossed the traditional RTS fare with a very light sprinkling of MOBA elements, like more impactful character abilities and more defined "lanes" to the maps, and, for better or worse, it wasn't really what fans were after. The studio has some cracking history with RTS games - alongside the lastingly popular Company of Heroes ones, the first two Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War games and their expansions are glorious, bigger-than-cult hits - but Dawn of War 3's reception in 2017 was mixed. Much of this is likely down to the approach Relic has taken this time around.
Watch on YouTube Take a decent look at the gameplay in this new trailer for Company of Heroes 3! It's early days - honestly, very early days, from what I played - but this, above all, seems to be the theme with CoH 3: it's all about recognising what was good about the last two games, and just doing more of it. And so, when Relic tells me that "humanising the battlefield" with more of these occasional barks is one of the "core pillars" of Company of Heroes 3, I'm delighted to hear it, probably even more than I am to hear about the fancy dynamic campaign or the wonderful southern-Med setting. I am not selling this! But still, the point is when the Americans parachute in all chipper like, or one of my little Russian comrades complains to another that "stealing my biscuits is not the Soviet way!", Company of Heroes is doing its job better than any RTS like it. It's about doing the voices, making the sounds of the guns, living out your twilight years with no-one but the model army in your basement. Like any good RTS, these are games about make-believe, about moving little men around a battlefield, role-playing as one of those retired, amateur history enthusiasts with too much spare time, who are themselves role-playing as a Second World War commander.
Of all the things to like about Company of Heroes, I'm especially a fan of the conversations.
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