Disclaimer: I was writing this for the 'Top Video Games Never Made' thread but my post was getting more and more ambitious, so I decided to make my own thread on this.
Title: Company of Heroes 2
Developer: Relic
Publisher: THQ
Release Date: October 2013
THQ, going into the 7th Console Generation and knowing that they couldn't compete with EA, Activision, and others, decided to pivot and focus on the AA market. One one hand it was going to offer cheaper console games at $49.99, games that were more niche such as the Darksiders games which didn't have the big name appeal of Zelda, so players were obviously going to be more skeptical of the standard $59.99 retail price. On the other hand, THQ, seeing a power vacuum in the PC market as the big publishers put out console exclusives or shoddy poorly received PC ports, decided to solidify their position, specifically in the RTS market with the developer Relic. Unfortunately a narrower focus to allocate more funding and time to their fewer projects meant other games would be put on hold such as Space Marine, Red Faction Guerilla, and others.
Following the success of Dawn of War II, which expanded upon both Dawn of War and Company of Heroes' mechanics, though controversially from certain fans it delved more into the RPG element (heroes, smaller army size) like Warcraft than sticking faithfully to RTS games, THQ got in contact with Relic to discuss a sequel to the highly acclaimed innovating Company of Heroes title. There were some informal discussions at Relic before on a proposed sequel. The North African Campaign, the Italian Campaign, and especially The Battle of the Bulge were considered as likely scenarios. However, in a surprise twist, one day in 2009, the game director, Quinn Duffy, caught 'World War II in Color' and was blown away by the episodes focusing on the Eastern Front.
The sheer scale of the conflict, the brutality, and chaos completely overshadowed the always memorable the Normandy Campaign, the Battle of the Bulge, and the other scenarios he and his team had planned for the sequel for Company of Heroes. Prior to this, his only impression of the Eastern Front came from the film 'Enemy at the Gates' and like many, he wasn't impressed with the performance of the Russians in combat and found them unrelatable. By the end of his viewing of the documentary however, his views completely had changed and he began thinking of what could be systemized and turned into mechanics, how the factions could play like and more in the possible sequel.
Upon returning to work, he showed off the episodes to his colleagues who equally were impressed with the setting and brainstormed Company of Heroes... set in the Eastern Front.
It took THQ a bit of convincing, fearing that it was such a foreign setting for most players, even wondering if players would feel alienated by the Russian accent, but Relic won out, promising that their game would introduce so many players to the most brutal campaign in the history of mankind with refinements to mechanics already established while also offering innovative elements related to weather such as breakable ice which could sink enemies, blizzards that would kill soldiers who weren't near bonfires or in buildings while also limiting vision, mud that would slow movement to a crawl, and more. Plus, THQ was already publishing Metro 2033, a game that not many westerners knew of and was set in a 'foreign' setting.
Quinn Duffy and his team quickly went to speak to historians, watched other documentaries, and read some acclaimed books on the Eastern Front. However, the team was split on whether to remain grounded in the historical facts, or delve into the iconography, or 'tropes', that were more popular to the western audience. Overall, they decided to take artistic liberties and would thus touch upon topics like Order 221 'Not One Step Backwards' while the narrative would follow a young benign officer witnessing the horrors of the war, mainly committed by the Soviets to illustrate the brutality of Stalin and his subordinates. Also because of the scale of the Eastern Front campaign that took place from 1941 to 1945, Relic had to cut countless units and vehicles, especially the early phase of the war/ Relic also thought adding late war units such as the King Tiger, Jagdtiger, and more would put the Red Army at a disadvantage, which resembled more of their 1942-1943 state because Relic wanted to portray the Red Army in an iconic fashion and were limited by the length of the historical campaign. Thus Relic would have the German faction reflect the 1942-1943 state, with the iconic Tiger being the most advanced and arguably powerful unit in the game.
In 2012, the first reveal trailer went out, surprising many with the sudden focus on the Eastern Front. Reception was positive as many considered Company of Heroes 1 to be their favorite RTS of all time. Some were disappointed by the setting, believing the game would amount to zerg rushing as the Soviets like in the Enemy at the Gates film while others just wish they had their North Africa or Battle of the Bulge game.
With more funding and time given to Relic to work on the game, they were able to refine the core gameplay and new mechanics, balance the game for multiplayer with a noticeable change being the available commanders going from 3 to 5 in the sequel with interchangeable units and abilities similar to Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts and Company of Heroes Online, and overall add more content to the game. Modding, which benefited a handful of PC games like Bethesda's titles and even Relic's RTS games, would be added ASAP following release.
However, Relic's worries mainly revolved around the singleplayer. Having compared it to Starcraft 2's Wings of Liberty campaign, Relic themselves found their own campaign to feel... slow, unreactive, and just a slog to play. Defense missions just were a matter of allocating units to urgent areas behind cover and because the AI only knew how to perform frontal attacks and blobbing instead of flanking or using combined arms, it was an unengaging affair. The only times you did lose was because Relic would force the player to retreat or call in scripted events such as artillery to do so. As for the Attack missions, the AI was too static and unresponsive to your actions. There was no urgency such as a timer and so players would just slowly get from Point A to Point B, killing groups and groups of enemies standing in place. Relic did try to rectify this with occasional counter attacks but they never were challenging and were more annoying than anything.
Ironically, it was the same case for the original Company of Heroes games. Attack missions also were a slog while defense missions were unengaging. The only difference though was that because the squad AI in COH1 were more independent (individual soldiers spreading apart and getting into cover), combat felt a bit more lively and defense missions, the AI was better at swarming and 'flanking' you whereas in COH2 units would stick too close and bunch up because of the squad AI. Also, feedback from their select players who finished the campaign found the story to feel badly written, unlikable characters, and confused by the tone and structure.
In October 2013, the game finally was shipped after initially aiming for a Spring release but Relic succeeded in asking for more time, and received wide critical acclaim though not as much as the first game. Much praise was given to the refinements in gameplay, the new weather mechanics which took quite a while to work out without being feeling too annoying, the new line of sight feature, and the fresh setting. The multiplayer received most of the attention, with the faction design offering a ton of asymmetry and 10 commanders offering a lot of variety and choice to players. Unfortunately, Relic's doubts about the campaign turned out true with the campaign feeling "boring" and the story felt "awfully told" and "historically inaccurate and offensive to the Russians" and could not compete with Starcraft 2's WoL campaign which came out around two years earlier.
Other criticisms included the lack of certain important battles like the Siege of Sevastopol, Leningrad, Bagration, and more while battles like Stalingrad and Berlin felt rushed and it just felt like a 'road trip' across the 4 year long Eastern Front campaign. This pales in comparison to Company of Heroes 1 where it was focused on the Normandy Battle/Campaign and thus players felt more engaged with the conflict. Also the lack of late war equipment was voiced. The game was praised for the lack of microtransactions though, with skins being purchasable with real life money and thankfully the commanders and units weren't locked behind a paywall.
Still, the game sold close to a million copies in late 2013, surpassing the 1 million mark in early 2014, a major success considering the PC market. Relic took the criticisms to heart, namely the campaign, story, and familiar time period tech and promised their fans to rectify them and take a more historical approach than an iconic one. And so, like Relic's previous games, they started work on the expansion.
Relic was going to be ambitious with their expansions. They would release three expansions, each split and released in two parts over time, each with their own period tech, campaigns, story, and expand upon the multiplayer.
To be continued...
Title: Company of Heroes 2
Developer: Relic
Publisher: THQ
Release Date: October 2013
THQ, going into the 7th Console Generation and knowing that they couldn't compete with EA, Activision, and others, decided to pivot and focus on the AA market. One one hand it was going to offer cheaper console games at $49.99, games that were more niche such as the Darksiders games which didn't have the big name appeal of Zelda, so players were obviously going to be more skeptical of the standard $59.99 retail price. On the other hand, THQ, seeing a power vacuum in the PC market as the big publishers put out console exclusives or shoddy poorly received PC ports, decided to solidify their position, specifically in the RTS market with the developer Relic. Unfortunately a narrower focus to allocate more funding and time to their fewer projects meant other games would be put on hold such as Space Marine, Red Faction Guerilla, and others.
Following the success of Dawn of War II, which expanded upon both Dawn of War and Company of Heroes' mechanics, though controversially from certain fans it delved more into the RPG element (heroes, smaller army size) like Warcraft than sticking faithfully to RTS games, THQ got in contact with Relic to discuss a sequel to the highly acclaimed innovating Company of Heroes title. There were some informal discussions at Relic before on a proposed sequel. The North African Campaign, the Italian Campaign, and especially The Battle of the Bulge were considered as likely scenarios. However, in a surprise twist, one day in 2009, the game director, Quinn Duffy, caught 'World War II in Color' and was blown away by the episodes focusing on the Eastern Front.
The sheer scale of the conflict, the brutality, and chaos completely overshadowed the always memorable the Normandy Campaign, the Battle of the Bulge, and the other scenarios he and his team had planned for the sequel for Company of Heroes. Prior to this, his only impression of the Eastern Front came from the film 'Enemy at the Gates' and like many, he wasn't impressed with the performance of the Russians in combat and found them unrelatable. By the end of his viewing of the documentary however, his views completely had changed and he began thinking of what could be systemized and turned into mechanics, how the factions could play like and more in the possible sequel.
Upon returning to work, he showed off the episodes to his colleagues who equally were impressed with the setting and brainstormed Company of Heroes... set in the Eastern Front.
It took THQ a bit of convincing, fearing that it was such a foreign setting for most players, even wondering if players would feel alienated by the Russian accent, but Relic won out, promising that their game would introduce so many players to the most brutal campaign in the history of mankind with refinements to mechanics already established while also offering innovative elements related to weather such as breakable ice which could sink enemies, blizzards that would kill soldiers who weren't near bonfires or in buildings while also limiting vision, mud that would slow movement to a crawl, and more. Plus, THQ was already publishing Metro 2033, a game that not many westerners knew of and was set in a 'foreign' setting.
Quinn Duffy and his team quickly went to speak to historians, watched other documentaries, and read some acclaimed books on the Eastern Front. However, the team was split on whether to remain grounded in the historical facts, or delve into the iconography, or 'tropes', that were more popular to the western audience. Overall, they decided to take artistic liberties and would thus touch upon topics like Order 221 'Not One Step Backwards' while the narrative would follow a young benign officer witnessing the horrors of the war, mainly committed by the Soviets to illustrate the brutality of Stalin and his subordinates. Also because of the scale of the Eastern Front campaign that took place from 1941 to 1945, Relic had to cut countless units and vehicles, especially the early phase of the war/ Relic also thought adding late war units such as the King Tiger, Jagdtiger, and more would put the Red Army at a disadvantage, which resembled more of their 1942-1943 state because Relic wanted to portray the Red Army in an iconic fashion and were limited by the length of the historical campaign. Thus Relic would have the German faction reflect the 1942-1943 state, with the iconic Tiger being the most advanced and arguably powerful unit in the game.
In 2012, the first reveal trailer went out, surprising many with the sudden focus on the Eastern Front. Reception was positive as many considered Company of Heroes 1 to be their favorite RTS of all time. Some were disappointed by the setting, believing the game would amount to zerg rushing as the Soviets like in the Enemy at the Gates film while others just wish they had their North Africa or Battle of the Bulge game.
With more funding and time given to Relic to work on the game, they were able to refine the core gameplay and new mechanics, balance the game for multiplayer with a noticeable change being the available commanders going from 3 to 5 in the sequel with interchangeable units and abilities similar to Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts and Company of Heroes Online, and overall add more content to the game. Modding, which benefited a handful of PC games like Bethesda's titles and even Relic's RTS games, would be added ASAP following release.
However, Relic's worries mainly revolved around the singleplayer. Having compared it to Starcraft 2's Wings of Liberty campaign, Relic themselves found their own campaign to feel... slow, unreactive, and just a slog to play. Defense missions just were a matter of allocating units to urgent areas behind cover and because the AI only knew how to perform frontal attacks and blobbing instead of flanking or using combined arms, it was an unengaging affair. The only times you did lose was because Relic would force the player to retreat or call in scripted events such as artillery to do so. As for the Attack missions, the AI was too static and unresponsive to your actions. There was no urgency such as a timer and so players would just slowly get from Point A to Point B, killing groups and groups of enemies standing in place. Relic did try to rectify this with occasional counter attacks but they never were challenging and were more annoying than anything.
Ironically, it was the same case for the original Company of Heroes games. Attack missions also were a slog while defense missions were unengaging. The only difference though was that because the squad AI in COH1 were more independent (individual soldiers spreading apart and getting into cover), combat felt a bit more lively and defense missions, the AI was better at swarming and 'flanking' you whereas in COH2 units would stick too close and bunch up because of the squad AI. Also, feedback from their select players who finished the campaign found the story to feel badly written, unlikable characters, and confused by the tone and structure.
In October 2013, the game finally was shipped after initially aiming for a Spring release but Relic succeeded in asking for more time, and received wide critical acclaim though not as much as the first game. Much praise was given to the refinements in gameplay, the new weather mechanics which took quite a while to work out without being feeling too annoying, the new line of sight feature, and the fresh setting. The multiplayer received most of the attention, with the faction design offering a ton of asymmetry and 10 commanders offering a lot of variety and choice to players. Unfortunately, Relic's doubts about the campaign turned out true with the campaign feeling "boring" and the story felt "awfully told" and "historically inaccurate and offensive to the Russians" and could not compete with Starcraft 2's WoL campaign which came out around two years earlier.
Other criticisms included the lack of certain important battles like the Siege of Sevastopol, Leningrad, Bagration, and more while battles like Stalingrad and Berlin felt rushed and it just felt like a 'road trip' across the 4 year long Eastern Front campaign. This pales in comparison to Company of Heroes 1 where it was focused on the Normandy Battle/Campaign and thus players felt more engaged with the conflict. Also the lack of late war equipment was voiced. The game was praised for the lack of microtransactions though, with skins being purchasable with real life money and thankfully the commanders and units weren't locked behind a paywall.
Still, the game sold close to a million copies in late 2013, surpassing the 1 million mark in early 2014, a major success considering the PC market. Relic took the criticisms to heart, namely the campaign, story, and familiar time period tech and promised their fans to rectify them and take a more historical approach than an iconic one. And so, like Relic's previous games, they started work on the expansion.
Relic was going to be ambitious with their expansions. They would release three expansions, each split and released in two parts over time, each with their own period tech, campaigns, story, and expand upon the multiplayer.
To be continued...
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