Company of Heroes 3 hands-on preview - War Is Not Easy

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The Italian and North African campaigns of World War II were brutal, and Company of Heroes 3 shows just how difficult it is to fight a chaotic battle both tactically and strategically.

I played the latest beta version of the real-time strategy game Company of Heroes 3 earlier this month, and it looks a lot neater than when I played it a few times earlier. After playing, I spoke with Executive Producer Steve Mele of Relic Entertainment, the division of Sega that is releasing the PC game on February 23.

In this demo, I was able to play for hours. I took a look at the start of the campaign game on a strategic map, where the allies invaded the Gela region of Italy on July 9, 1943. I also played on the German side in North Africa, where the British are fighting the Afrika Korps for control of Gazala. And I got a taste for tactical battles in single player landings and multiplayer battles.

Buildings are essential to control in Italian cities.

Mele mentioned that there are 40 tactical maps in the game, reflecting the game's wide range of combat and environments, compared to 22 maps for Company of Heroes 2. These map numbers tell you that this is a pretty massive game and you can see why it took a long time to complete the game.

Multiplayer battles are tough

It was a lot to take in, and I had some obvious observations. When I played multiplayer against a developer from the Relic team, I was given a headache. Humans are still much smarter than computer AI. At first, I took the lead in developing units and gathering resources, but my human enemy overtook me in the middle of the game, then overpowered me in the end.

The start of a North African battle in Company of Heroes 3.

I could tell by seeing a very interesting graph that showed my points over time versus my enemies. Since I was just looking at the tactical view, I never knew where the exact turn was.

Mele gave me some advice afterwards on how you need to be situationally aware of what your enemy is building and get your own base to craft the units to counter that...