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Back in 2006, Relic's World War 2 strategy game Company of Heroes picked up the entire RTS genre and shook it. At the PC Gaming Show just now, Relic announced Company of Heroes: Definitive Edition, and I couldn't be more excited about another opportunity to hop into the trenches.
I felt a giddy thrill come over me as I watched the trailer and saw the little GIs hopping out of the boat and storming up the beach for D-Day. For me, Company of Heroes is the best World War 2 strategy game, and this remake looks like it's going to be a diligent upgrade that preserves everything that made the original so special.
Company of Heroes helped redefine the RTS genre with a more tactical approach, popularising mechanics like cover and reinforcements in a genre that often felt like it was about drawing a box around all your dudes and right-clicking the enemy base. Or maybe that was just me.
Company of Heroes: Definitive Edition will include the original game alongside the Opposing Fronts and Tales of Valor expansions, plus a modernised UI, quality-of-life improvements and new enemy AI that Relic promises will provide a tougher challenge. Under the hood, the game is also making the jump to a 64-bit platform, helping it play more nicely with modern hardware while remaining compatible with the past two decades of community-made mods.
The announcement has me excited because it reminded me of all the hours I spent playing Company of Heroes at university, where I was an utter gremlin to almost everyone I played with. One friend stopped playing with me forever after I surrounded his entire base with barbed wire and tank traps before stationing snipers and anti-tank guns around the perimeter and declaring that I had demilitarised him. Reflecting on it years later, I probably would have quit in a huff too. Sorry, Nigel.
In a lot of ways, Company of Heroes practically encouraged this sort of behaviour. Who can forget the Fallschirmjäger Squad ability, which lets you spawn elite infantry from almost any building on the map at any time? The only real counter was to level every building before I could use it, which wasn't exactly practical when you were also trying to stop my forces from kicking your teeth in. Check it out on Steam.
