Company Of Heroes 3’s release date for consoles is now revealed.
As reported by Video Games Chronicle, Company Of Heroes 3 will be released on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S on May 30, 2023. Pre-orders have also been scheduled. Both physical and digital copies will be available via pre-order beginning April 25, 2023.
This will be the first Company Of Heroes game that will arrive in consoles. Subsequently, studio Relic Entertainment has made changes to the game that will make console play possible.
One of the new key features to make this happen seems to be Full Tactical Pause. This is a special pause that will freeze all actions in the game, and allow you to coordinate and schedule moves one after the other, instead of having to time everything just right in real time gameplay.
This new incarnation of the game also features a stronger focus on verticality, which is enabled by the broad mountain ranges of the Italian campaign. Across the different cities you enter, as either an Allied soldier or a local partisan, the push towards the capital and Mussolini will be a highly tactical march.
Also added in is a popular feature in other genres; destructibility. Being able to destroy buildings, as well as terrain, will enable new strategies and different ways of playing.
The African campaign also remains controversial, as you play the Axis side as the Desert Fox himself, Erwin Rommel. Rommel did famously route the Allies throughout the course of the war from taking Africa, but with this campaign, Relic borders dangerously close to both-sidesing the Second World War, possibly even minimizing Rommel’s role as an Axis general.
As the game has released on PC, we already know Relic’s approach to this touchy subject. While the military campaign focuses on the 1942 battle of Alamein, it cuts to the story of a North Africa Jewish family in the middle of this conflict. It’s not a perfect solution – the family has a good story but it’s not really connected to the gameplay. However, it does go a long way towards addressing what would otherwise have been an uncomfortable play experience.
Still, if there is one key word to describe Company Of Heroes 3, it would be streamlined. And it’s been streamlined with the kinds of choices needed to make it fully playable on console. In a month’s time, fans will find out if they have succeeded in doing that too.
