$12.99

Company of Heroes 2 is a quasi-old game at this point, but Sega isn't done with it quite yet. On September 3, it will be getting a "Briti??sh Forces pack," which will be sold for $12.99. It includes 15 new units, six commanders, and eight multiplayer maps.

The setting? Historic battlefield locations throughout Europe near the end of World War II. Evidently a "majo??r" upgrade is coming at this time as well, which will re-balance the game as well as provide? some graphical enhancements.

When it drops, it will be available as a standalone package. I'm tempted, as I never really got into Company of Heroes 2 proper. Starter later today (10AM PST) you can pre-order it on Steam for a 10% discount, or a 20% discount if you own "any" Company of Heroes game.

The post Company of Heroes 2 is getting a ‘British Forces’ pack appeared first on Destructoid.

Custom maps are the best maps

Company of Heroes 2 will be getting a free content update, ??that will include the awaited World Builder that will let players create their own multiplayer maps. The update will also add two new multiplayer maps and four new commanders, two for ea?ch faction.

New maps from the developers are always great, but I am really looking forward to seeing what the community comes up with once they get their hands on the World Builder. Modders can make some crazy stuff, and I can't wait to see what shenanigans they can create with these new to??ols.

The post Company of Heroes 2 adding new maps and Wor??ld Builder appeared first on Destructoid.

Relic's WW2 RTS title also removed from other Eastern European countries

Whilst our own Joshua Derocher loved Company of Heroes 2, it has not gone down too well in Russia and Eastern Europe. Polgyon reports that the game's publisher in those regions, 1C-SoftClub, has removed the game from sale, bowing to online pressure from fans and press in Russia and CIS countries??. 

Gamers have taken issue with the way the original Company of Heroes portrayed the Allied forces as a brave and honest force, while the game's sequel has resorted to broad stereotypes that paint the Red Army in an unflattering light to say the least. Although developer Relic Entertainment was keen to point out the historical accuracy and eye-witness testimony it used in creating the game's story, over 17,000 signatures in a petition to have the gam??e removed from Steam have?? led to the game's removal from sale.

Even though historical consensus is that the Eastern Front was a horrible place to be, it seems the broad strokes that Relic used in its story have left a poor taste in gamers' mouths. Whilst I don't think we'll see CoH2's western publisher SEGA withdraw the game from sale, I?? doubt there can be work done to make the game more acceptable to Russian gamers. It would take a lot of time to re-do cutscenes and the ?structure of the missions.

C??ompany of Heroes 2's Russian Distributor halt??s sales [Polygon]

The post Company of Heroes 2 removed from sale in Russia appeared first on Destructoid.

Winter is here

Company of Heroes 2 comes off strong with its new campaign, and it packs an impressive amount of extra features. Standing on its own, it is an impressive real-time strategy game, but there are people who want to know what makes this better than the beloved original Company of Heroes. The simple answer to that question is tha?t it's more of what they love.

The sequel brings a new ?campaign, new multiplayer maps and units, new co-op modes, more?? explosions, more units on the field, and deathly winter combat, all presented with the gameplay that made the first such a hit. It stays true to its roots while bringing in enough new, compelling content to make it worthwhile.

Company of Heroes 2 (PC)
Developer: Relic Entertainment
Publisher: SEGA
Released: June 25, 2013
MSRP: $59.99
Rig: AMD Athlon 7850 2.80 GHz, with 4GB of RAM, GeForce GTX 560 Ti GPU

The sequel to one of the best strategy titles out there, Company of Heroes 2 lives up to its predecessor. The game focuses on the Eastern front of World W?ar II, and during the campaign the player takes on the role of the Russians. It's a slow-paced RTS, with a big emphasis placed on unit placement and having troops stay behind cover if they want to survive.

Each un??it is a squad of troops, rather than just an individual. The strength of the squad is based on how many soldiers are alive. This system lets their be hundreds of soldiers in the game, but the player only has to focus on a dozen squads or so. Squads can be refilled with new men at headquarters, or conscript troops can be assigned to fill in missing ranks. At a given time a player will control anywhere from five to twenty squads, which doesn't seem like it would be that hard to do, but it can be hectic? to keep everyone moving and alive.

The utterly fantastic campaign is among the best I have played in a strategy game. Missions are varied enough that different tactics have to be used to win each one. There are some defense missions that are so hectic I had to constantly readjust my troops to face new attacks coming from all sides. One mission ?takes place in the snow, and you have to prevent your troops from freezing to death by moving close to fires, or keeping them inside.

Anot?her one of my favorites involved hunting down and destroying a Tiger tank, which I ultimately accomplished by luring it into a series of mine?s I placed as a trap. There are 14 missions in the campaign, and each one takes between 20-60 minutes to complete depending on the difficulty and how terrible you are at playing.

All of the new mechanics fit well with the Eastern Front setting. Lots of soldiers will die, and CoH2 does a brilliant job of making it expensive to lose troops. Conscript troops can be cheaply deployed q??uickly, but these soldiers are ill-equipped to survive for long. They are best used to replenish the ranks of more valuable units, and then sent off to the front lines. As units are built they will often shout out, "Need a suicide squad?" Taking over an enemy territory will certainly require you to sacrifice a lot of men, and sometimes you'll have to do it knowing you won't be able to replace them easily.

I was always faced with some form of a choice with each unit. "Do I have them run in and face certain death, or do I hold back and wait for a better opportunity?" Better opportunities don't always come, and sometimes the only way to win the battle is to lose ?a fight. Wounding a tank is ultimately more valuable than a squad of infantry. The cold weather adds to this dilemma of having to choose to lose expensive units, since having them out too long can cause them to freeze to death. Even if they survive a fight, they can and often will die in the cold soon after. All of these calculated decisions are heavy to deal with, and the game's atmosphere and mechanics make sending every squad to the front lines a hard choice.

Alongside the campa?ign, there is the "Theater of War" mode which includes a series of ?co-op and single-player missions and scenarios. This mode is meant to provide more battles along the Eastern front that don't tie in directly to the campaign. While right now all of the battles focus on the year 1941, Relic has stated that it plans on adding more content later.

The scenarios are tightly-focused missions revolving around one aspect of the war that year, and they are some of my favorite missions in the game. Company of Heroes 2 shines the brightest for me when I have three squads and keeping them alive is ?insanely hard. The co-op missions are large-scale battles that pit players against a computer opponent; the rest are simply single-player missions that use the multiplayer maps and have a computer opponent.

There is a competitive multiplayer, of course. It's what gave the first game such a long life, and it's just as solid in the sequel. It plays out the same as in the first game, either with players fighting over control points or simply trying to demolish each other. This time around there are all new maps and units, which is enough to make me want to play the same style of game. If you are a classic fan of the series and you're only interested in the multi-player, it's hard to say if you'll find enough here invest in this if you already played the first. It's more of change than the Call of Duty series has every yea?r, and people sti?ll play that like crazy.

No matter what your style of play is, there's a ridiculous amount of achievement, unlocks, and progression to keep you in the game. There are 366 Steam achievements, which is just absurd, but if you pl??ay often it's nice to know there will always be something you haven't done yet. Your in-game profile, which is tied directly to Steam, will gain levels and as you level up you'll be able to customize your army with different units, abilities, and even custom skins.

Company of Heroes 2 brings the classic gameplay of the original game into the modern era. It has all of the familiar mechanics while embracing new technology to make everything look and respond better. The physics are very realistic, and just about everything can be destroyed. One mission had me defending? a point from oncoming Germans, and I kept getting flanked by them crossing a bridge. On my third attempt I had the crazy idea, "What if I blew up the bridge?" and I sent over a team of engineers to rig it with explosives. The first round of Nazis was met with a surprise, and the bridge was no longer a problem.

All of the cover can be destroyed if the other guy has a big enough gun. Hiding behind a fence might be great for stopping bullets, but tank is going to destroy the wall and everyone behind it. Standing on ice is a really bad idea, since if enough weight is applied, it will break. As things get destroyed, soldiers can take cover in holes in the ground or behind rubble, broken tanks, and even corpses. After a long match the middle ground will often be demolished, filled with the effects of war. This evolving battlefield makes Company of Heroes 2 stand out from other s????trategy games, and I have a feeling it will make any other game without this level of physics feel fake.

Company of Heroes 2? is an excellent real-time strategy game. The campaign is challenging, varied, and true to the setting of the war. The atmosphere is intense and filled with bass-rumbling sounds, and an orchestral score that provides the perfect background. It's visually impressive, yet manages to run at a smooth frame rate. All of th??e matchmaking and multiplayer systems are tied into Steam, so you don't have to log in twice to play the game; everything runs flawlessly.

I was worried that the campaign would be weak and everything would be focused on the multiplayer, but I was happy to be proven wrong. The campaign turned out to be my favorite part, and wit?h the added content from the Theater of War mode, there is a lot of game even if you don't want to engage other players. The amount of content is generous, going way beyond the normal six-hour single-player campaign a??nd multiplayer formula that most games use today.

I could ramble off dozens of words of praise, but the simplest way to summarize my experience is to say that I stayed up playing until 4:00am without realizing how late it was, either because I was yelling at the Germans for killing my troops or high-fiving the air when I took out a tank. It's one of those games that can suck you in for hours and keep you constantly engaged. Company of Heroes 2 is shining example of what an RTS game should? be: a mix of classic mechanics with new features and technology.

The post Review: Company of Heroes 2 appeared first on Destructoid.

Second beta phase will be more inclusive

It's nice to hear that Relic Entertainment is still plugging away at development on Company of Heroes 2. Leading up to the full June 25 release, the studio will soon hit the obligatory "closed beta" milestone. Open first on April 2 to those who pre-ordered CoH 2, the beta will eventually encompass "a wider audi??ence?" of players.

This'll be accessible on Steam and includes six playable maps; 1v1, 2v2, 3v3, and 4v4 competitive multiplayer; and the option to play with an AI teammate should you not want to go it alone. I speak from experience when I say maybe at first, that's not such a bad idea. Additionally, the beta allows the first 40 levels of game progression to be unlocked and customizable loadouts.

The post Com?pany of Heroes 2 beta opens s?oon for pre-orderers appeared first on Destructoid.

Fight well, comrades

Dynamic weather hazards, TrueSight, and now a progressive leveling system are the three pillars Relic is building Company of Heroes 2 on.

While we've talked at length about these first two elements, the leveling system is what caught my eye the most on this third go around, taking more than a few cues from the Call of Duty series.

Company of Heroes 2 (PC)
Developer: Relic Entertainment
Publisher: THQ
Release: TBA 2013

One thing Hamza and Jordan didn't get to see was a build of the game running on DirectX 11. In our past previews, Company of Heroes 2 looked nice in DX9, but DX11 just a??dds all those little wrinkles to make the game pop.

The persistent snow tracks have added depth, dimpling, and take a more natural shape. The snow itself looks more like individual pieces forming a larger whole rather than a static white sheet. You can see particles burning and moving in the smoke, and river water flows and reacts dynamically to infantry, vehicles, and the wind. While the official specs have yet to be released, Relic has said that the Essence 3.0 engine is being optimized to be less tasking than the first CoH.

If you're familiar with our coverage of the single-player combat, you should have a good idea of what's on offer here. TrueSight is the name of the game in CoH 2. A?s it is, the real-time strategy standard is to block off enemy units' visibility until your own come into close proximity. TrueSight is essentially a more real-world interpretation of this, a feature that limits your own visibility to what your units would be able to see.

When taken with the game's cover system, things start to get interesting. While your infantry might triumphantly waltz in to capture an enemy fuel plant, you can easily be caught of guard by a nearby mortar team hidden in shrubbery. Despite being slower-paced than some other RTS gam??es, this approach to visibility does a great job of keeping you on your toes.

One of the more touted additions to Company of Heroes 2 is the weather's effect on gameplay, and the same holds true in multiplayer. Like TrueSight, the weather hazards go a long way to forcing you to stay adaptable. Some units are slowed down by heavy snow, visibility is reduced, and infantry will even freeze to death if you don't take care to get them to a campfire eve?ry so often. The weather proves itself to be more than a gimmick, punishing players (like me) who initially refuse to respect the hazards. Not much longer after the snow storm kicked in, my infantry fell to the brutal cold, leaving the enemy anti-tank units unchallenged to decimate my armor.

Outside of battle, the upgrade system offers a great deal of flexibility, taking a good amount of inspiration from the Call of Duty franchise. The most si??gnificant part of your loadout is perhaps your commanders. With seven to choose from on each faction (possibly more via post-lauch support), you can select up to three per loadout.

Commanders offer their own unique buffs, structures, and units. You won't have the resources to call them in until midway through the match though, and even then, once you pick a commander to go with, you're s?tuck with him for the duration. For this reason patience is advised as you want to get a feel for which commander is going to help you the most. Wait too long though, and you can expect to get a swift kick from your enemy's commander units. I usually stuck with my offensive commander, allowing me to call in specialized mortar units to round out my tank-heavy army.

You can also deck out your loadout with intel bulletins, which essentially act as perks. Based on real WWII-era documents given to soldiers that detailed how to deal with certain types ??of opposing forces, intel bulletins offer minor, passive buffs to your army. These include damage boosters, faster access to your commander, etc. You can only select three per loadout, however -- I found that you have to get a read on your opponents play style to make the most of them. Since my opponent favored heavy armor, I slapped on a 10 percent tank damage boost to buff my anti-tank infantry. I st??ill got my ass kicked, but I like to think the bulletin helped me go down swinging.

All this is unlocked via a traditional progressive upgrade system. You play matches, earn experience points, and gain more customization options as you rank up. You can even earn XP in single-player, but on a curve similar to what we saw in Halo: Reach. So don't expect to rank up quickly by playing the same exact mission over a??nd over.

The system even comes with a prestige mode, called Battle Honors, that allows you to reset back to level one in exchange for better emblems. Achieving battle honors does net you mor?e than just emblems, such as intel bulletins that can only be unlocked after a certain battle honor ranked has been reached.

While all strategy titles are, by definition, a thinking man's game, Company of Heroes 2's slower pace does a great ??job of tasking the 'ol noggin, while the TrueSight system and weather hazards preserve a gre??at deal of the reflexes and split-second decision making of faster RTS titles. It still remains to be seen how well all the new additions work in multiplayer with other teammates (all my matches were 1v1 skirmishes), so be on the lookout for the early 2013 beta. Until then, stand firm and ready -- the Motherland calls, comrades.

The post Preview: Company of Heroes 2 multiplayer appeared first on Destructoid.

I'll never get tired of seeing tanks slip into the frigid depths

This first entry in a series of developer diaries for Company of Heroes 2 covers most of the major talking p?oints new to the real-time strategy game, from its brutal weather conditions which drastically affect troops, the ability to vault ove?r cover, and Relic's TrueSight system.

So, nothing we haven't already heard before, but at the same time, it's nice to hear anything about the game at all -- to know that, yeah, it's still on the way. With an "early 2013" release date, the studio has some ground to cover with this video series. I'm eager to see? what the team has been working on lately.

The post Company of Heroes 2 develo?per diary pre?pares for war appeared first on Destructoid.

Don't shoot the messenger

In reporting its second-quarter fiscal 2013 results, THQ announced the delay of South Park: The Stick of Truth. Originally scheduled for March 5, 2013, the Obsidian Entertainment-developed role-playing game is now looking to release "early fiscal ?2014" -- in other words, at the earliest, in April 2013.

Unfortunately, there's more where that came from. Company of Heroes 2 and Metro: Last Light are now expected to ship in March. "Our fourth quarter releases are the first titles that I have had the ability to material??ly impact," stated THQ president Jason Rubin, "and experience told me that the games needed additional development time to be market-ready."

Disappointing news to come home to, no doubt about it. Hopefully that extra development time can be used effectively. Obviously we want every game to be go???od -- who wouldn't? -- but I do have high hopes for these three titles in particular.

The post Three major THQ game?s delayed including South Park appeared first on Destructoid.

The pre-order incentives for Company of Heroes 2 aren't out of the ordinary, but the way in which they're being offered is a bit different than what we're used to. The base bonuses are beta access once that goes live and vehicle skins for the German Rotbraun and Russian Leningrad. And then there are the tiers.

Essentially, the more people who pre-order on Steam, the better the rewards. Tier 1 is the obligatory Team Fortress 2 gear, tier 2 is a free copy of Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II: Retribution, and reaching tier 3 will provide in-game currency, an XP and unit boost, and the Commander Arche??type.

In addition to all of that, there's also a $99.99 Digital Collector's Edition for Company of Heroes 2 which will include acc??ess to the first three single-player content packs as they each become available, the original game and its expansions, and other bonuses. Collectively, we still have a long way to go.

The post These are the?? pr??e-order bonuses for Company of Heroes 2 appeared first on Destructoid.

Surprise! Well, not really. But we do appreciate the gesture. THQ has made its officially official announcement for Company of Heroes 2 following the PC Gamer reveal of the? sequel. There's not much else to go on here, though they were nice enough to include a screenshot.

"Company of Heroes 2 is a true successor," says Relic Entertainment producer Greg Wilson, "introducing a new front, new protagonists and new technology while retaining the unique mix of strategic gameplay and competitive multiplayer that made the original Company of Heroes such a success."

The?? tech in question is Relic's Essence 3.0 Engine, which will allow for improved environmental destruction and fog of war based "on true and proper line of sight."

The post THQ announces Company of Heroes 2 for early 2013 appeared first on Destructoid.