Company of heros 1 also works because it does show the battle for normandy from several angles. British Amercian and even Germans and its why i consider it one of the best ww2 games
I've played a bit of the DAK campaign. I don't mind that they tried to bring in the civilian element. And I am sure that from the perspective of the civilians there, the axis and allied soldiers didn't appear like humans. My problem was that the civilian arc seemed entirely disconnected from the actual gameplay missions. It made both the civilian mission intros and the missions itself fall flat as they didn't relate to eachother in any meaningfull way.
I feel like those cutscenes were meant for an entirely different campaign, maybe they wanted to have missions where you play as the father fighting with the British or the daughter committing sabotage. They even occasionally showed them as In-Engine Models, like you were meant to control them at some point. Instead, the whole story seems tacked onto a campaign in a classic example of Ludonarrative Dissonance, oh, you won the Mission? well, now that Girls family is torn apart, wanna know what happens next? Blow up those British Tanks! Oh, you beat the final Mission? Too Bad, you lost off screen, you want an ending, go play the other Campaign, I'm told its in there somewhere. What? You'd Rather have some sort of Last Stand Evacuation Mission against the UK and US in Tunisia? Maybe a Mission where you have to make the hard choice of which of the nonexistent Characters you've gotten attached to gets to leave first, with each one, the window for the others gets smaller. I Swear they put the DAK in the game just to have the tag line "Four Factions at Launch."
@@LtLuigi25 It's just more of the same as what we're seeing in modern war films. They used to be movies honoring the fallen and their heroic sacrifices. Now everything has to be a biopic about how the war ruined someone's life. War is not a pleasant thing to be in for the Soldier and the Civilian it's important to understand focus. The game isn't about Sally "Who lost her family in North Africa" it's about George and his " Company of Heroes doing Heroic things". If you want to make a game about Sally you make a game about Sally, if you want to make a game about George you make a game about George. To try and combine them in some schizophrenic nonsense is just going to leave everyone dissatisfied.
It feels like pure tokenism. The DAK story (such as it is) talks about the SS showing up to be awful people, but that's all it amounts to - talk. No depiction of Nazi crimes. No mention that Rommel did nothing to prevent antisemitic policy taking effect, or that the DAK was expected like the rest of the Wehrmacht to facilitate genocide. It exists in a safe, apolitical vacuum - farcical, since historical fact knows no political allegiance.
Disclaimer: I haven't played COH3 yet, so can't really say how much I could get right or wrong. I have no idea how many cinematics are there for it. The Italian Campaign would've been perfect for a portrayal of the impact of war on civilians, as truly most of the war was fought on ground and cities actively inhabited as most of the Italian population could/would not be evacuated. There were a lot of significant things, like the impact of a multicultural allied army on foreign soil, with Italians fighting against each other on both sides, extreme poverty and devastation, the fact that many Italian-American soldiers which fought in the campaign had relatives and family in the lands they fought to liberate. A lot of incredible stories could be born from it.... but the general impression the Italian campaign left on the culture was: brutal, neverending, useless, thus unceremoniously forgotten. Maybe that's why all these elements are glossed over, as they aren't appealing for any sort of modern take on a WW2 story. Nowadays there is always some kind of business choice behind narrative themes in games.
You know what could have been good? If they had introductions like in COD: World at War. Some really striking visuals and condensed but well-organised and delivered information about the campaigns we're fighting, the places we're fighting in, and the units involved. It doesn't have to be personal down to the level of individuals or squads, but it could really add serious depth and emotional weight to the game. Tell us, at the start of the game, why the Allies invaded Italy, the role of the Italian nationals fighting against the Germans and the regiments from across the world brought to this place. Tell us, at the end, the cost of the invasion. How many soldiers fought there. How many died. That's how they should have done it, if they weren't going to commit to a soldier-level story.
Funny enough there is a movie that kinda touches on this. Which is Nicholas Cage in "captain Corelli's Mandolin" which is about an Italian garrison essentially in a greek town that eventually sides against the germans etc. I wouldn't call it the best movie but least its something. Ultimately what annoys me still is there is no Italian faction. Like how? This is literally the main theater of the Italians and we aren't even given a new unique Axis faction that isn't German? Its agitating to say the least. Idk how you overlook that major content detail its frankly annoying cause its the equivalent of not having the Soviets in COH2.
CoH2 also makes references to movies like the German "Stalingrad" - the AT gun crews even say "We ate the horse, remember?" which I recall as being a line in that movie. I think a lot of the German campaigns/voice lines come from that film, and the American "Bulge" mini campaign takes a lot from BoB's Bulge episodes.
Yeah I had a feeling there would be more references and inspirations, there are a lot of things I left unsaid because I was really trying to keep it in the 20 min mark, for easy viewing purposes. However, you are 100% right.
Iirc Helping Hans said in one of his streams that for CoH2 the devs asked the community for voice lines to implement, the poem of the Panzergrenadier is from Helping Hans iirc ("Roses are red, Violets are blue, I´m stuck on the eastern front and so are FUCKING you!"). There are probably a ton more references to movies without us knowing such as "Steiners lips are frozen to the mortar".
@@colonelsmith7757 the Eastern front was a lot more cold and dreadful than that. More so than just eating horses. During the Stalingrad offensive, the Germans even were low on supplies and IIRC only 1/3 of the necessary supplies could be airlifted in due to bad weather, forcing the Germans in Stalingrad to scavenge for what they could. There’s stories of them even eating rats because they were so hungry.
The original menu screen for coh2 shows the classic relic mine logo, which then pans up past dead bodies floating in the water to reveal a diorama of a battle over a frozen river, the new menu is so sterile.
This is so true. I played CoH2 since the open beta. That game definitely had vision. Look at the UI - it's all made to look as files and the sound design of changing tabs is the sound of paper. The font is like from a typewriter. Even the post match graphs look like old graph paper on which someone has drawn. Look at the bulletins, every single one having a bit of history in them. The general and unit pictures have a filter on them to seem like you're looking at photographs and files in an HQ. When they introduced OKW, they originally had lower income, to mimic the Germany's worsening economy. The blizzard mechanic was really thought through. Now many of these changes got reversed, or removed - but they did try. With CoH3 it seems they had no vision, and I suspect it's because some key people left relic. Disco Elysium for example is a game with vision and it shows. I do hope relic survives.
Man, I just wanted a proper German campaign set in Africa following Rommel and maybe a 3rd part of the Tiger Ace, or something along the lines of the Last Tiger if they don't go on the same route as the original game.
You nailed it man, I hope someone at relic sees this. Perhaps a DLC inspired by the Big Red 1 or The Devils brigade (which they included in the game). They had the basis of following extraordinary tales of the Indians, SSF, and the airborne. Lots of actual historic figures that could have actually been showcased. This isn't Campaign of heroes, but the company level of boots on the ground. Excellent video!
@@henryhamilton4087 Not much hope either even if they werent fire, Relic had been bleeding talented devs since just after releasing CoH1 and around the time CoH2 and DoW2 was being made (either left/move on to other projects or quit/retire from game dev). And most of those that remained who made CoH2 and Dow2 also left the company when THQ went under (understandable, no one wants to stay in a dead company), just before they were aquired by sega. So most of the devs that made CoH3 are either devs that were temporarily transfered from CreativeAssembly (to fill in for lost talent) that up to that point had only ever made Total War games or newly hired talents, both of which have never really worked on nor understood what games like Dawn of War and Company of Heroes series are at their core, Its how they managed to kill the Dawn of War series by releasing that hot garbage that is DoW3.
You did a great job of just pointing out some of the issues that coh3 begin to show as it was revealed to the public. I'm in the same boat in that I do want coh3 to succeed, but if you're going to release a sequel that is going to kill off portions of your former games numbers, you have to have a good structure.otherwise you will end up with bitter fans talking about the good old days.
I can see 2 routes for the (Italian) campaign story 1) A moral questioning if the worth of their sacrafices by the soldiers on a front that increasingly doesnt matter to the outcome of the war 2) A soap operaesque story between the communists and facists. Italy was essentially in a civil war by the time that the allies landed Neither of which was used
I Remember Codename Panzers: Phase II did something similar, having two Italian brothers, one a devoted fascist captain and the other an intelligence operative that slowly starts to doubt the regime and in the end joins the Yugoslavian partisans Simple but effective
The communists weren't the only partisans in italy, Just under half the partisans (about 80 000 of the roughly 200 000), but you also had republicans, Liberals and monarchists (the later being the azzurre units, made up of Ex-royal army troops)
COH taught me a number of new things when it came out. First, the sound of the machingun nests is so visceral. Second, I finally discovered what my 5.1 speaker can do when I heard an 88mm gun fired from off screen on the top right and the sound of the shot landing somewhere on lower left of my monitor. Thirdly, I learned the valuable lesson of good, branded power supply. The cheap one that came with my PC died while I was playing COH.
Not gonne lie, a DLC in tone with Captain Corelli's Mandolin would be an amazing way to start off the italian faction DLC. That German naval invasion of Korfu and the desperate Italian attempt to mount a defensive action. Gosh gets me every time.
Great video! I always wanted to point out how coh3 feels like it has no identity compared to the previous games, i hope this game gets back on its feet in the near future.
Great analysis. I was coping hard telling myself COH3 will be fixed. But this video confirmed my latest thoughts that it can't be fixed. It's broken to the core and your video brought out some elements which are very hard to articulate.
Unfortunately most of relic developers have moved on since coh 2 to other companies the new relic has almost no veterans left its almost entirely different company. Good news however is that homeworld 3 is made by original relic devs who made homeworld 1 hopefully that game is a good hit and the new blackbird interactive will become the new relic of rts games.
I would say COH1 and COH2 are just Dawn Of War in world war 2 Skins. Star craft is a more traditional RTS but these fit into a more MIcro-cover based TRS sub franchise.
I been playing Company of Heroes for years and I didn't even notice 3 got released. And before the release, all I felt about the trailer was Battlefield 5.
Here's the tragedy. These theatres saw their fair share of brutal conflict. There are innumerable stories to tell and to take inspiration from. This could have been a game that broke the "War without Hate" myth. We had high hopes for a CoH game set in this underrepresented, oft overshadowed front. These hopes were dashed on the rocks of apathy. Indifference killed the games soul. Its not a bad game, technically, mechanically. Not to everyones taste, but still. The lack of care and due dillegence, betrays the fact that this game was made without serious thought put into its core concept. Telling a story.
A huge source for lack of immersion in coh3 are the awful vehicle physics. In coh2 they were amazing, felt real, smashed through things. But 3 they're just point a to point b with minimal suspension. The vehicles don't feal 'real' they're just boring. It really made a huge difference.
yeah your absolutely right, I had some Patton footage in place for this video but it was running too long. Apologies. I actually made some alternative COH3 art from the film Patton. if your interested.
Seeing the last clip of the poppy flowers make me feel melancholic... Seeing what England is nowadays i can just say they shouldnt have fought the germans.... in both world wars..
They also made it impossible for Russians to buy the game. I was waiting for it for a long time, because CoH1 was one of the best games I played when I was a kid, it especially was fun to play with my dad and my younger bro. So I bought CoH2 without a hesitation, and it became one of my fav games too. It felt really nice to reunite with my old friends occasionally and play it to distract ourselves from our adult lives. Now I live in Japan as a uni student, but I don't want to change my Steam region to buy it because I feel kinda sad that they treat their fans like this, let aside the quality of the new game. Idk. Thank you for the video btw < 3
Honestly the campaign and trailers for coh 3 just reminded me of Battlefield 5. It just felt like they were missing all the key story telling elements that made the previous coh games great in campaign. I wish they did go back to analyze the first game and reintroduced that style of story telling and “humanize” both sides. It didn’t even attempt to do that for the axis or allied campaign, it was also extremely confusing to have a Libyan freedom fighter talk throughout the axis campaign like. “Bro if I wanted to hear your story, I’d play the Brit’s.”
@@Stahl_und_Eisen This. It was just "German go boom" and "Queen slay" I knew it was going to be shit since femoids and their simp devs were putting their agenda into the game, whilst completely ignoring what's the game is all about.
Hey Man, I am familiar but I find Spike Lee's film to be very political and takes many political liberties. There are other films too like Captain Corelli's Mandolin but they just don't fit the bill of a "war Epic" (in my humble opinion, but thank you very much for your input to the discussion, I really appreciate that :)
It also didn't help they brought back Conti & MacKay, but voice acted by completely different people. Who are.. just horrible at it. It took away that nostalgic feeling of "these are the boys from CoH 1". I think the only decent voice actor in the whole game was that American general in the Italian Campaign. Even his name is forgettable.
Just for that intro you're getting a sub XD Dude, I was watching it and starting to think, 'get on with it', theb that little pop up occured and I couldn't help but laugh.
As you pointed it out, I honestly think that the Italian Campaign missed the opportunity for cinematics and extra theattics because there is some genuine setpieces in the game that could actually benefit and gain extra stuff if fully realized. Missions like the officer assasination is set up to be easily like the action flicks of Inglorious Bastards or Commando but lack cinematics and theatrics to really nail the theme. Same goes for the Officer rescue mission with partisan help. It would've been nice to see them lean more to the popular Mediterranean theatrics as well hell even for the Afrikan campaign, yet they just didn't. Like, the trailer was hype and conveyed a very action packed style of thematics; more heroism and glory based similar to the popular movies set there; yet the game is pulling back their punches and basically ended up with a confused identity. Like, even Commandos (a really not well known type of unit in ww2 in general especially American ones) were pretty focused on in the trailer hell even appearing in the Main menu twice (current Menu + last alpha test), that the type of movies the inspiration is coming from could be seen yet they sadly didn't bother to stick with to fully showcase. Do they want to lean into the heroic styled Spaghetti war films? Or maybe tone it back down to the serious and moody tones of older games? Instead they ended up 50/50 for both sides and even clashed at some aspects.
You what I was wanting to put in but ran out of time, the Rogue Heroes, SAS boys in North Africa WW2, that would make for some great game play. thank for all your words, I really appreciate that.
One absolutely great movie that cover specifically the Italian theater is Road 47. It's a 2013 brazilian movie that flew under the radar bc... well nobody knows there were 25.000 brazilian soldiers on Italy. It follows a squad of brazilian engineers with the mission of cleaning mine fields and roads for the american army. When i first watched it, I felt amazed by the humanization of german soldiers and intimacy among the soldiers. When COH3 was announced, I had a tiny bit of hope the Pracinhas would be mentioned, with a card, or unit, even small indicators like graves (since other small countries were represented), and that Road 47 would be somehow a reference to a slow paced, intimate, and humanized approach. I still cling to that hope.
Fantastic analysis, it feels so long ago when I first learned of CoH and saw the trailer for the first game. It gave such goose bumps, while I was a kid back then I am appreciating the cinematic and thematic parts of the game and its assorted media more and more as I mature. Personally I won't be getting CoH 3, 2 is still my bread and butter to play with friends. Once again great job, you've earned yourself a sub, hopefully the next video is a banger as well!
CoH didn't come out of the blue. Games like the original Medal of Honor and Call of Duty paved the way. The first one envisioned by Steven Spielberg himself. Later on, titles like Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30 combined cinematic storytelling with a more tactical approach. With CoH, Relic successfully improved and expanded Dawn of War mechanics with an iconic represenation of a WW2 battlefield. CoH was much less about realism ("tank dancing") than it was about orchestrating cultural codes that we connect to WW2 movies. And then combining all of that with strong tactical gameplay. The cutscenes, the voiceovers, the gritty punchlines, the flying leather coats of Ritterkreuzträger, the grandiose SFX ... - everything comes together in an action-packed RTS were every move may count. Maybe the greatest thing about CoH is how hollywoodesque effects and staging feed into the gameplay. If a Nebelwerfer fires somewhere on the map, you will know. You may even have a second to react and move your guys out of the danger zone. If you upgrade your Rifleman to a BAR, you can almost feel that they are now more powerful. If you let your soldiers take shelter in a farmhouse and it is pounded by enemy arty, you can see and hear that it is close to collapsing over the heads of your squad. I just love the game. (Never played the second part... )
You’ve nailed this ! I completely agree with you on everything, coh 3 just has no personality or effort put behind it , Hey I’m a big fan of coh 1 and 2 , I too have some mixed feelings about 3 , I am seriously disappointed,do you agree or disagree ? The UI the graphics the gameplay , music , no surrender button In multiplayer , campaign feels dead too me , the cutscenes , art work feels like a step back not a step forward , I mean the menu is just 1 picture lmao , with 1 soundtrack , maybe it will get a bit better with updates , but surely I can’t be only one who’s going back too coh 2 , you seem have be way too positive about a game that has removed everything 1 and 2 and then they release this ? 🤷♂️I get your trying be postive about coh 3 but you’ve got be honest with yourself others and the development team as they are gonna have hear this harsh truth in order fix this game , 10 years we’ve waited since coh 2 and although coh 3 succeeds with gameplay changes , it’s severely lacking in character and it’s personality , if people genuinely think that this game right now overall is a game recommend and sing praises about then I can’t genuinely think you played the first 2 with a passion , I respect some peoples positive opinions on this game but they need fix this game end of 🙂
I can't agree more...but the lack of passion is in of today's everything: cinema, tv shows, video games...all the AAA title are recycling from the previous title. CoH2 was recycled from CoH1 (still has more passion than CoH3) and CoH3 was recycled from what was recycled in CoH2...it makes a very soulless product. Its pretty stale now, every game nowadays is unfinished, empty and broken...is it too hard to ask for a game that works at release because who wants to play a game that will be actually ready in 2-3 years from the release date? no one. Thats why I stopped playing CoH2 pretty early back in the day because the game was not great, but eventually got better apparently. I never got to play that state of the game...
It's because money, profits and margins are everything now, the creative people getting ruled by empty suits looking for the next Bonus payment. That's why everything is crafted to "what the people want", except as the Video says in Art and games people often don't really realise what they would want until they see it and throwing together popular mechanics and tropes makes for a soulless entity. Same issue with movies, they are so hellbent on giving the people the franchises "they want" and only produce garbage. Yh people said they wished there was another Star Wars movie or Indiana Jones, because they loved that stuff and it's Nostalgic too, so the Suits smell easy money, don't have to put in effort just go by the numbers and produce bad movies, even better that creates its own PR, because the Internet is angry and can't stop talking about it. Feels like every day there is 10 new Videos here on "what is wrong with new Marvel" and why Kathleen Kennedy is a Sith Lord. lol Stop giving them your money damn it, that is the only language they understand.
Spot on review. Relic seem to have gone from being inspired by the tales of valor (COH1) to being afraid of touching the subject of war (COH3). What a shame, really.
Wow you captured some great shots from the original games and have applied a layer of critique to the new game I hadn't even considered, because I always play multiplayer I hadn't seen any of those awesome cinematics. Anyway yeah it really looks like Relic just doesn't have that much interest in world war 2 because any armchair historian can see the lack of passion
yeah I mostly play Multiplayer too but there is a special place in my heart for the COH campaigns, well at least there used to be. glad you liked it man.
Since we already had Coh 1/2 and their expansions cover nearly the entire war (with the exception of the pacific theater), Perhaps it was time CoH 3 should have been made to take place in another conflict. Vietnam is a good candidate, lots of legendary movies were made about that war and that could have been used as reference like they did with the original CoH.
Love COH1 the British voice lines in COH1 are the best. I dont particularly like any of the coh3 unit voice lines ( I know voice lines are small thing in the game but i really feel they added to the British faction and campaign)
Yeah i think that one of the main issues with CoH2 was not that it was based on a subpar moview tone-wise. But the fact that they gave up this idea of focusing on individual soldiers. If in CoH1 you actually feel bad for every squad you lose because of this feeling that these are actual people, in CoH2 you don't get this. You're just sending digital units into battle, not digital people. Arguably this makes up for a better multiplayer experience (people don't turtle as much as they would otherwise), but the singleplayer loses massively from this. It's also funny that even the DLC with the american troops feels the same exact way, so it's just the very way they designed the narrative/gameplay is like that. It's kind of similar with CoD1 - CoD2. CoD1 feels very grounded while CoD2 is a mindless massive action.
can i just say that, once again, hunger for money killed something beatiful? How many times something truely unique is born, gainst followers and monies, then there is a 1-up in form of a sequel gaining even more monies and fans and then it all goes to shit loosing everything that it built on itself? My wish for solving world peace would be for people to stop blindly beliving in power of coin and see what's truely important.
They really looked at people praising the Ardennes campaign and extracted the technical details. The squabble between the two allied generals was unique - I only wish it'd had more felt effects in the game. Make the choices harder and make it such that players are likely to lose some missions because one general has a stick up his ass. Even if it was impossible to recreate the atmosphere of stoic heroism that permeates the storytelling of the Eastern and Western Fronts, there is an atmosphere out there to latch on to, one which Relic sadly failed to do. Adding in the civilian side story didn't really hook me in; there were no emotional stakes to it. Have me play the policing and crackdown of local communities. You know what missions from CoH2 hit the hardest? The one where the conscripts rescue the protagonist commander from the rubble and get shot by the commissar for not disobeying orders to do so, followed by the one where you have to surround a German city and clear out escape attempts. War is always horror, and if Relic really wanted to reflect the impact of war on the civilian populations of North Africa and Italy they should have shown us the stories they told in the narration.
The difference in audio volumes between the shots is really annoying. I found myself constantly lowering and raising the volume to be able to understand and at the same time not be bothered by the sound effects. Other than that, great analysis and I agree 100% with the points made
I’m surprised they didn’t follow the gaming trend with minorities, because the Italian front would have been an interesting one, and could have been done right. For example, you could have the 100th Infantry Battalion made of Japanese Americans, the Brazilian Expeditionary Forces, and the Tuskegee Airmen providing support. I think it was a missed opportunity.
I hoped on launch and still hope that we get the flip side of the North African campaign, the British… and with luck a good story too. It’d be hard for them to mess one up when you have the SAS and LRDG running around with well documented accounts and colourful characters, along with interest given Rogue Heroes but one can only hope.
I think the fundamental mistake was to choose World War II as the scenario again. After 2 parts, the scenario is simply used up. I, for one, would much rather have the Vietnam War as a scenario. More modern weaponry, amphibious and asymmetric warfare, jungle combat - none of which has been seen in a CoH before. Besides, there are more than enough pop culture references.
@@grant5580 Great idea! Because there are so many well-known games to the scenario, which have also sold extremely well! Oh wait.... Let's face it: Nobody cares about the Korean War anymore. - Apart from the (North) Koreans.
I suggested on a video months ago that a _Letters of Iwo Jima_ inspired campaign (if done right) would prove beneficial to the game. It would be one way to help humanize the soldiers in the game. Alas, Relic did not take up that advice for CoH 3.
I play this game for the multiplayer at this point. Sure coh 1 and coh 2 had good single player experiences but at this point i just play the multiplayer. I only played the first mission in the africa campaign in coh 3 so far.
yeah man I hear you, I'm a multiplayer man too but I feel like at this price, The game should have a solid campaign. Just playing the multiplayer is like buying a 60 Dollar Apple Pie and only eating the crust.
@@yosugami6275 yeah man, I get you, I'm putting int he hours too, enjoying the game, making a new video on COH3 as we speak. I'll see you on the battlefield. :p
Instead of another game that paid tribute to the men and women who did their duty, and served their home countries whether it be Germany, USA, Italy, Russia, Japan, ect, and also paid tribute to cinema, the game seems to pay homage to the woke agendas and politics. We are tired of the entertainment industry and corporations pushing their agendas on us, we just want to be entertained. There was no art, heart, or soul in this game. The writers of COH3 appear to have no love for the history of WW2, the real reasons and emotions people fought, for those that honored their duty when their country called, or to even the Golden Age of Cinema/Hollywood. It is a shame in multiple directions.
I agree, and I'm not surprised. In the dev diaries, folks from Relic loved bragging about hiring "cultural experts" for the game... as opposed to actual WW2 historians.🤦♂
There is also Men of War Assault Squad 2. Another fantastic RTS game imo, but I've never actually played the game, I dont have a computer. I love watching people play the game especially with realistic mods and what-not. COH3 has recently been added to console, and since there are no actual images of the game on the store, and neither of the available trailers show actual full on raw gameplay, I had no idea what I would be buying until I saw this video
It would be neat if each company you deployed in the campaign map would be assigned a historical unit name (at least starting with those which fought in the campaign in reality, like 1/101st Abn company or whatever) and give us a little blurb about the unit's history in the real life version of the events, and maybe unique insignia, give it some sort of historical value. Contextualize me, please.
The problem is that most corporate offices often will give projects to entirely different apartments with no skin in the game. In addition, it wouldnt surprise me if most of the hires were done on an ESG platform thus demanding a mediocre product in general, rather than masterful story making we know the creatives on payroll are capable of making.
I've never played a campaign or watched a cinematic in COH, I'm a pvp player only. COH's failure for me was releasing an unpolished, unfinished, and refined game that destroyed the player base within a week of release.
Hey, im a PVP man too, but for that price tag (for me it was over £60.00, for that price every aspect of the game should have content and polish, not just the PVP (which is probably the best and most refined part of the game at this point and that saying something lol) But yeah, the failures this game has is wide and far reaching.
As long as CoH2 has cinematic value for western audience, it's soviet campaign is really offensive and rusophobic for russian people. As well as "Enemy at the Gates" film. If anyone is interested in Stalingrad sniper duels - you can read about it in "Notes of a Sniper" book by Vasili Zaitsev himself. Aside from that note, couldn't say better about CoH3. It's just soulless, buggy, unpolished, feels like slap in the face for CoH fans =(
It’s more than likely those that made the originals with said focused ideas for a WW2 RTS are likely long since gone from the company. (hell as you pointed out we just had a bunch of layoffs recently) All that’s left at the moment are the cloth sniffers of game design
My biggest issue with the new game is they took the grittiness out of it. Just looking at tanks fight in the new game it looks like they are shooting fireworks at eachother, and the sound effects dont help it. In COH2 if a king tiger shoots a churchill you know about it. The tank rocks when it gets hit, theres a loud ass bang as the KT fires and when it impacts a loud metalic whine and explosion. In COH3 theres next to no physical or audible indicators that a big gun just got fired, just a health bar going down.
Company of heroes will never capture the true essence of WW2 like men of war series did. In that game every soldier you command is expendable and will die in a single rifle hit. When you decimate a convoy soldiers on fire run around in panic and pain. Every tank that catches fire has a crew that catches fire too and try to exit the tank in panic. A tank crew will always operate and relaod tank shells faster then reguler troops. Darkness lowers accuracy and daylight or flares at night improves it. A german tiger tank will not go down no matter how many times you hit it with lower caliber shells like 75 mm and below. Unlike COH where only very specific units can destory heavy armor in men of war any unit can destory a heavy armor vehical or tank through strategy. Any infantry man can destroy a tank by HE anti tank granades or by using bazookas mines and AT-rifles to disable the tracks and then flank the tanks blindside and chuck an HE granade at it. I can go on and on about the depth of men of war series but if I did will take hours.
It’s weird the trailers and the cinematics show the allied soldiers being killed and going through adversity, where as COH 3 it seems like they said, “those evil Nazis can’t be shown winning at all!”
That is a very astute observation, I'm not fussed about seeing the fascists "winning" but I think the correlation between loos of life and hardship is important when instilling courage and discipline in the troops.
It’s super cool to hear some more veteran players perspective on COH, I’ve played since 2021 when the trailer for COH3 dropped, so I got COH2 to try and learn some mechanics. The biggest difference for me was that DAK and Wehrmacht don’t feel different enough, like American and Britain, Perfect! But maybe a true Italian faction and move DAK to the main and just sprinkle in the Wehrmacht cool stuff
Gameplay wise, the game is also broken as well. i have finished both campaigns and played a number of skirmish against the hardest AI. The AI is rather dumb, and you can easily win the match if you play as the Americans and abuse the Combat Engineers' toughness and flamethrowers they are equipped with at the early game. Out of 3 varieties of man-portable antitank weapons (bazooka, panzershrek, and Boys AT rifle), only the panzershrek gives a decent threat to vehicles. Light vehicles just zooooom across the battlefield and the accelleration is even faster than race cars :D There are many visual glitches too that are laughable to look at. in music department too, gone are the immersive battle musics of CoH2
Company of heros 1 also works because it does show the battle for normandy from several angles. British Amercian and even Germans and its why i consider it one of the best ww2 games
I've played a bit of the DAK campaign.
I don't mind that they tried to bring in the civilian element. And I am sure that from the perspective of the civilians there, the axis and allied soldiers didn't appear like humans.
My problem was that the civilian arc seemed entirely disconnected from the actual gameplay missions. It made both the civilian mission intros and the missions itself fall flat as they didn't relate to eachother in any meaningfull way.
Yeah i know what you mean, There is a lack of any meaningful interactions between the two, its very poorly implemented.
I feel like those cutscenes were meant for an entirely different campaign, maybe they wanted to have missions where you play as the father fighting with the British or the daughter committing sabotage. They even occasionally showed them as In-Engine Models, like you were meant to control them at some point.
Instead, the whole story seems tacked onto a campaign in a classic example of Ludonarrative Dissonance, oh, you won the Mission? well, now that Girls family is torn apart, wanna know what happens next? Blow up those British Tanks! Oh, you beat the final Mission? Too Bad, you lost off screen, you want an ending, go play the other Campaign, I'm told its in there somewhere.
What? You'd Rather have some sort of Last Stand Evacuation Mission against the UK and US in Tunisia? Maybe a Mission where you have to make the hard choice of which of the nonexistent Characters you've gotten attached to gets to leave first, with each one, the window for the others gets smaller.
I Swear they put the DAK in the game just to have the tag line "Four Factions at Launch."
@@LtLuigi25 It's just more of the same as what we're seeing in modern war films. They used to be movies honoring the fallen and their heroic sacrifices. Now everything has to be a biopic about how the war ruined someone's life. War is not a pleasant thing to be in for the Soldier and the Civilian it's important to understand focus. The game isn't about Sally "Who lost her family in North Africa" it's about George and his " Company of Heroes doing Heroic things". If you want to make a game about Sally you make a game about Sally, if you want to make a game about George you make a game about George. To try and combine them in some schizophrenic nonsense is just going to leave everyone dissatisfied.
It feels like pure tokenism. The DAK story (such as it is) talks about the SS showing up to be awful people, but that's all it amounts to - talk. No depiction of Nazi crimes. No mention that Rommel did nothing to prevent antisemitic policy taking effect, or that the DAK was expected like the rest of the Wehrmacht to facilitate genocide. It exists in a safe, apolitical vacuum - farcical, since historical fact knows no political allegiance.
Disclaimer: I haven't played COH3 yet, so can't really say how much I could get right or wrong. I have no idea how many cinematics are there for it.
The Italian Campaign would've been perfect for a portrayal of the impact of war on civilians, as truly most of the war was fought on ground and cities actively inhabited as most of the Italian population could/would not be evacuated. There were a lot of significant things, like the impact of a multicultural allied army on foreign soil, with Italians fighting against each other on both sides, extreme poverty and devastation, the fact that many Italian-American soldiers which fought in the campaign had relatives and family in the lands they fought to liberate.
A lot of incredible stories could be born from it.... but the general impression the Italian campaign left on the culture was: brutal, neverending, useless, thus unceremoniously forgotten.
Maybe that's why all these elements are glossed over, as they aren't appealing for any sort of modern take on a WW2 story. Nowadays there is always some kind of business choice behind narrative themes in games.
You know what could have been good? If they had introductions like in COD: World at War. Some really striking visuals and condensed but well-organised and delivered information about the campaigns we're fighting, the places we're fighting in, and the units involved. It doesn't have to be personal down to the level of individuals or squads, but it could really add serious depth and emotional weight to the game. Tell us, at the start of the game, why the Allies invaded Italy, the role of the Italian nationals fighting against the Germans and the regiments from across the world brought to this place. Tell us, at the end, the cost of the invasion. How many soldiers fought there. How many died.
That's how they should have done it, if they weren't going to commit to a soldier-level story.
its weird you brought that up, I was thinking about that game and the cut scenes today.
Steel division 2 did that strikingly well too
Flammenwerfers. We'll werf the flammen.
@@Rather.Splended.Cromwell Another good one is the original Men of War.
Funny enough there is a movie that kinda touches on this. Which is Nicholas Cage in "captain Corelli's Mandolin" which is about an Italian garrison essentially in a greek town that eventually sides against the germans etc. I wouldn't call it the best movie but least its something. Ultimately what annoys me still is there is no Italian faction. Like how? This is literally the main theater of the Italians and we aren't even given a new unique Axis faction that isn't German? Its agitating to say the least. Idk how you overlook that major content detail its frankly annoying cause its the equivalent of not having the Soviets in COH2.
CoH2 also makes references to movies like the German "Stalingrad" - the AT gun crews even say "We ate the horse, remember?" which I recall as being a line in that movie. I think a lot of the German campaigns/voice lines come from that film, and the American "Bulge" mini campaign takes a lot from BoB's Bulge episodes.
Yeah I had a feeling there would be more references and inspirations, there are a lot of things I left unsaid because I was really trying to keep it in the 20 min mark, for easy viewing purposes. However, you are 100% right.
Iirc Helping Hans said in one of his streams that for CoH2 the devs asked the community for voice lines to implement, the poem of the Panzergrenadier is from Helping Hans iirc ("Roses are red, Violets are blue, I´m stuck on the eastern front and so are FUCKING you!"). There are probably a ton more references to movies without us knowing such as "Steiners lips are frozen to the mortar".
I always thought he said "We ain't a horse, remember?" whenever you moved the AT gun around.
@@colonelsmith7757 the Eastern front was a lot more cold and dreadful than that. More so than just eating horses. During the Stalingrad offensive, the Germans even were low on supplies and IIRC only 1/3 of the necessary supplies could be airlifted in due to bad weather, forcing the Germans in Stalingrad to scavenge for what they could. There’s stories of them even eating rats because they were so hungry.
A rather splendid analysis. 👍
Thanks Hans, I appreciate that.
helpinghans himself 😮
I didnt buy CoH3 cause i expected them to mess it all up to be honest.
Hmm yes very shplendid yes
What's so good about previous titles, especially CoH2, is that it's so gritty.
This feels like an arcade game.
It's quite literally Dawn of War all over again.
@@jazzardousRelic just won't stop messing up any game with 3 in the title
@@LordVader1094 Making me nervous about Homeworld 3
The original menu screen for coh2 shows the classic relic mine logo, which then pans up past dead bodies floating in the water to reveal a diorama of a battle over a frozen river, the new menu is so sterile.
Coh2 launch was horrible. The game became playable after one or two years
This is so true. I played CoH2 since the open beta. That game definitely had vision. Look at the UI - it's all made to look as files and the sound design of changing tabs is the sound of paper. The font is like from a typewriter. Even the post match graphs look like old graph paper on which someone has drawn. Look at the bulletins, every single one having a bit of history in them. The general and unit pictures have a filter on them to seem like you're looking at photographs and files in an HQ.
When they introduced OKW, they originally had lower income, to mimic the Germany's worsening economy. The blizzard mechanic was really thought through.
Now many of these changes got reversed, or removed - but they did try. With CoH3 it seems they had no vision, and I suspect it's because some key people left relic.
Disco Elysium for example is a game with vision and it shows. I do hope relic survives.
Man, I just wanted a proper German campaign set in Africa following Rommel and maybe a 3rd part of the Tiger Ace, or something along the lines of the Last Tiger if they don't go on the same route as the original game.
I liked the themes "of the last Tiger", it was my favourite part of BF5 single player.
Bet they are making something like that as paid DLC like well in all other CoH games
You nailed it man, I hope someone at relic sees this. Perhaps a DLC inspired by the Big Red 1 or The Devils brigade (which they included in the game). They had the basis of following extraordinary tales of the Indians, SSF, and the airborne. Lots of actual historic figures that could have actually been showcased. This isn't Campaign of heroes, but the company level of boots on the ground. Excellent video!
Thanks man :)
Patton (1970 film)
well considering that most of the Relic dev team got fired.....i don't have much hope.
@@henryhamilton4087 I hear you man, that was horrible news indeed.
@@henryhamilton4087 Not much hope either even if they werent fire, Relic had been bleeding talented devs since just after releasing CoH1 and around the time CoH2 and DoW2 was being made (either left/move on to other projects or quit/retire from game dev). And most of those that remained who made CoH2 and Dow2 also left the company when THQ went under (understandable, no one wants to stay in a dead company), just before they were aquired by sega.
So most of the devs that made CoH3 are either devs that were temporarily transfered from CreativeAssembly (to fill in for lost talent) that up to that point had only ever made Total War games or newly hired talents, both of which have never really worked on nor understood what games like Dawn of War and Company of Heroes series are at their core, Its how they managed to kill the Dawn of War series by releasing that hot garbage that is DoW3.
That band of brothers theme always gets me.
Same Brother
You did a great job of just pointing out some of the issues that coh3 begin to show as it was revealed to the public. I'm in the same boat in that I do want coh3 to succeed, but if you're going to release a sequel that is going to kill off portions of your former games numbers, you have to have a good structure.otherwise you will end up with bitter fans talking about the good old days.
yeah I get you. Its dark times brother. hopefully the next patch will get us going.
I can see 2 routes for the (Italian) campaign story
1) A moral questioning if the worth of their sacrafices by the soldiers on a front that increasingly doesnt matter to the outcome of the war
2) A soap operaesque story between the communists and facists. Italy was essentially in a civil war by the time that the allies landed
Neither of which was used
I Remember Codename Panzers: Phase II did something similar, having two Italian brothers, one a devoted fascist captain and the other an intelligence operative that slowly starts to doubt the regime and in the end joins the Yugoslavian partisans
Simple but effective
The communists weren't the only partisans in italy, Just under half the partisans (about 80 000 of the roughly 200 000), but you also had republicans, Liberals and monarchists (the later being the azzurre units, made up of Ex-royal army troops)
COH taught me a number of new things when it came out. First, the sound of the machingun nests is so visceral. Second, I finally discovered what my 5.1 speaker can do when I heard an 88mm gun fired from off screen on the top right and the sound of the shot landing somewhere on lower left of my monitor.
Thirdly, I learned the valuable lesson of good, branded power supply. The cheap one that came with my PC died while I was playing COH.
Not gonne lie, a DLC in tone with Captain Corelli's Mandolin would be an amazing way to start off the italian faction DLC. That German naval invasion of Korfu and the desperate Italian attempt to mount a defensive action. Gosh gets me every time.
Great video! I always wanted to point out how coh3 feels like it has no identity compared to the previous games, i hope this game gets back on its feet in the near future.
They'll probably abandon it like they did DoW3
10:49 You named every exact game I tried to feel what I felt playing CoH2.
You’ve earned yourself a new sub ! Thank you for sticking up for this franchise! It deserves better man 😕
that's really nice of you man. Thank you. Im sure this franchise will have great things to come :)
Great synopsis of what was no doubt a key issue in Relic's failure in CoH3 from the start.
Great analysis. I was coping hard telling myself COH3 will be fixed. But this video confirmed my latest thoughts that it can't be fixed. It's broken to the core and your video brought out some elements which are very hard to articulate.
Unfortunately most of relic developers have moved on since coh 2 to other companies the new relic has almost no veterans left its almost entirely different company.
Good news however is that homeworld 3 is made by original relic devs who made homeworld 1 hopefully that game is a good hit and the new blackbird interactive will become the new relic of rts games.
Do you know where these veterans spread?
COH2 and COH3 are just "StarCraft" with WW2 skins.
I would say COH1 and COH2 are just Dawn Of War in world war 2 Skins. Star craft is a more traditional RTS but these fit into a more MIcro-cover based TRS sub franchise.
I been playing Company of Heroes for years and I didn't even notice 3 got released. And before the release, all I felt about the trailer was Battlefield 5.
Longest YT intro ever.
Great video thanks
ahaha I had to go all out for this one xD glad you lied it
Here's the tragedy. These theatres saw their fair share of brutal conflict. There are innumerable stories to tell and to take inspiration from. This could have been a game that broke the "War without Hate" myth. We had high hopes for a CoH game set in this underrepresented, oft overshadowed front.
These hopes were dashed on the rocks of apathy. Indifference killed the games soul. Its not a bad game, technically, mechanically. Not to everyones taste, but still.
The lack of care and due dillegence, betrays the fact that this game was made without serious thought put into its core concept. Telling a story.
A huge source for lack of immersion in coh3 are the awful vehicle physics. In coh2 they were amazing, felt real, smashed through things. But 3 they're just point a to point b with minimal suspension. The vehicles don't feal 'real' they're just boring. It really made a huge difference.
They've improved stuff like this, and light verhicles can drift a bit at high speeds which is cool
"Built by committee"
Patton (1970 film) has some wonderful North Africa/Italian campaign scenes.
yeah your absolutely right, I had some Patton footage in place for this video but it was running too long. Apologies. I actually made some alternative COH3 art from the film Patton. if your interested.
@@Rather.Splended.Cromwell absolutely!
@@PersianImm0rtal ruclips.net/video/tqif2OnJAKI/видео.html there you go
Seeing the last clip of the poppy flowers make me feel melancholic...
Seeing what England is nowadays i can just say they shouldnt have fought the germans.... in both world wars..
16:50 is stunning in retrospect. I was excited to hear that relic is fast at work on CoH3 when this should have been a warning sign. Shame on me.
They got me too fam. its a damn shame.
They also made it impossible for Russians to buy the game. I was waiting for it for a long time, because CoH1 was one of the best games I played when I was a kid, it especially was fun to play with my dad and my younger bro. So I bought CoH2 without a hesitation, and it became one of my fav games too. It felt really nice to reunite with my old friends occasionally and play it to distract ourselves from our adult lives. Now I live in Japan as a uni student, but I don't want to change my Steam region to buy it because I feel kinda sad that they treat their fans like this, let aside the quality of the new game. Idk. Thank you for the video btw < 3
Thanks man for the thorough analysis, helped me understand all the fuss with CoH3. Some games just can't be repeated!
Just found the channel, subbed for the name alone. Cheerio !
thank you
Honestly the campaign and trailers for coh 3 just reminded me of Battlefield 5. It just felt like they were missing all the key story telling elements that made the previous coh games great in campaign. I wish they did go back to analyze the first game and reintroduced that style of story telling and “humanize” both sides. It didn’t even attempt to do that for the axis or allied campaign, it was also extremely confusing to have a Libyan freedom fighter talk throughout the axis campaign like. “Bro if I wanted to hear your story, I’d play the Brit’s.”
Right on the nose. Sad but absolutely true observations everyone has dealt with the game.
Yeah that CoH3 cinematic teaser was fucking EPIC.... so much hype.
it was something man! had me on the edge of my seat.
It felt like they blew their entire cinematic budget on that trailer and the blue scarf. 🫤
It looked like shit. Just nice 3d CGI effects, no story, no tension, just action. The gameplay will be baaad
@@Stahl_und_Eisen This.
It was just "German go boom" and "Queen slay"
I knew it was going to be shit since femoids and their simp devs were putting their agenda into the game, whilst completely ignoring what's the game is all about.
There was a more recent movie about the Mediterranean Theater, albeit centered around a single village. "The Miracle at St. Anna"
Hey Man, I am familiar but I find Spike Lee's film to be very political and takes many political liberties. There are other films too like Captain Corelli's Mandolin but they just don't fit the bill of a "war Epic" (in my humble opinion, but thank you very much for your input to the discussion, I really appreciate that :)
It also didn't help they brought back Conti & MacKay, but voice acted by completely different people. Who are.. just horrible at it. It took away that nostalgic feeling of "these are the boys from CoH 1".
I think the only decent voice actor in the whole game was that American general in the Italian Campaign. Even his name is forgettable.
Just for that intro you're getting a sub XD Dude, I was watching it and starting to think, 'get on with it', theb that little pop up occured and I couldn't help but laugh.
As you pointed it out, I honestly think that the Italian Campaign missed the opportunity for cinematics and extra theattics because there is some genuine setpieces in the game that could actually benefit and gain extra stuff if fully realized.
Missions like the officer assasination is set up to be easily like the action flicks of Inglorious Bastards or Commando but lack cinematics and theatrics to really nail the theme. Same goes for the Officer rescue mission with partisan help.
It would've been nice to see them lean more to the popular Mediterranean theatrics as well hell even for the Afrikan campaign, yet they just didn't. Like, the trailer was hype and conveyed a very action packed style of thematics; more heroism and glory based similar to the popular movies set there; yet the game is pulling back their punches and basically ended up with a confused identity. Like, even Commandos (a really not well known type of unit in ww2 in general especially American ones) were pretty focused on in the trailer hell even appearing in the Main menu twice (current Menu + last alpha test), that the type of movies the inspiration is coming from could be seen yet they sadly didn't bother to stick with to fully showcase.
Do they want to lean into the heroic styled Spaghetti war films? Or maybe tone it back down to the serious and moody tones of older games? Instead they ended up 50/50 for both sides and even clashed at some aspects.
You what I was wanting to put in but ran out of time, the Rogue Heroes, SAS boys in North Africa WW2, that would make for some great game play. thank for all your words, I really appreciate that.
One absolutely great movie that cover specifically the Italian theater is Road 47. It's a 2013 brazilian movie that flew under the radar bc... well nobody knows there were 25.000 brazilian soldiers on Italy.
It follows a squad of brazilian engineers with the mission of cleaning mine fields and roads for the american army. When i first watched it, I felt amazed by the humanization of german soldiers and intimacy among the soldiers.
When COH3 was announced, I had a tiny bit of hope the Pracinhas would be mentioned, with a card, or unit, even small indicators like graves (since other small countries were represented), and that Road 47 would be somehow a reference to a slow paced, intimate, and humanized approach.
I still cling to that hope.
We remember the brazilians! They were the first allied soldiers to enter my city after they made the germans free!
I saw the intro. I subbed just from that. Wonderful work! Now let's see how the rest of the review goes. Fabulous I am sure. :)
ahahaha, I'm glad man, A wee bit of Kubrick to get you going.
@@Rather.Splended.Cromwell Thank you for the reply. Having watched the rest of the review, I was not disappointed. Great stuff. Blessings! :)
@@blockboygames5956 im glad you enjoyed it :)
@@Rather.Splended.Cromwell Cheers. :)
Fantastic analysis, it feels so long ago when I first learned of CoH and saw the trailer for the first game. It gave such goose bumps, while I was a kid back then I am appreciating the cinematic and thematic parts of the game and its assorted media more and more as I mature. Personally I won't be getting CoH 3, 2 is still my bread and butter to play with friends.
Once again great job, you've earned yourself a sub, hopefully the next video is a banger as well!
thanks man I appreciate that :)
Another little thing I’ve noticed, well, between this and BFV, is that they make the Second World War look almost cartoony.
Nice video, I had no idea just how much these games relied on the state of contemporary cinema for their own writing and cinematics.
CoH didn't come out of the blue. Games like the original Medal of Honor and Call of Duty paved the way. The first one envisioned by Steven Spielberg himself. Later on, titles like Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30 combined cinematic storytelling with a more tactical approach. With CoH, Relic successfully improved and expanded Dawn of War mechanics with an iconic represenation of a WW2 battlefield.
CoH was much less about realism ("tank dancing") than it was about orchestrating cultural codes that we connect to WW2 movies. And then combining all of that with strong tactical gameplay. The cutscenes, the voiceovers, the gritty punchlines, the flying leather coats of Ritterkreuzträger, the grandiose SFX ... - everything comes together in an action-packed RTS were every move may count.
Maybe the greatest thing about CoH is how hollywoodesque effects and staging feed into the gameplay. If a Nebelwerfer fires somewhere on the map, you will know. You may even have a second to react and move your guys out of the danger zone. If you upgrade your Rifleman to a BAR, you can almost feel that they are now more powerful. If you let your soldiers take shelter in a farmhouse and it is pounded by enemy arty, you can see and hear that it is close to collapsing over the heads of your squad. I just love the game. (Never played the second part... )
You’ve nailed this ! I completely agree with you on everything, coh 3 just has no personality or effort put behind it , Hey I’m a big fan of coh 1 and 2 , I too have some mixed feelings about 3 , I am seriously disappointed,do you agree or disagree ? The UI the graphics the gameplay , music , no surrender button In multiplayer , campaign feels dead too me , the cutscenes , art work feels like a step back not a step forward , I mean the menu is just 1 picture lmao , with 1 soundtrack , maybe it will get a bit better with updates , but surely I can’t be only one who’s going back too coh 2 , you seem have be way too positive about a game that has removed everything 1 and 2 and then they release this ? 🤷♂️I get your trying be postive about coh 3 but you’ve got be honest with yourself others and the development team as they are gonna have hear this harsh truth in order fix this game , 10 years we’ve waited since coh 2 and although coh 3 succeeds with gameplay changes , it’s severely lacking in character and it’s personality , if people genuinely think that this game right now overall is a game recommend and sing praises about then I can’t genuinely think you played the first 2 with a passion , I respect some peoples positive opinions on this game but they need fix this game end of 🙂
I wish the developers played the first two games before making this one
I can't agree more...but the lack of passion is in of today's everything: cinema, tv shows, video games...all the AAA title are recycling from the previous title. CoH2 was recycled from CoH1 (still has more passion than CoH3) and CoH3 was recycled from what was recycled in CoH2...it makes a very soulless product. Its pretty stale now, every game nowadays is unfinished, empty and broken...is it too hard to ask for a game that works at release because who wants to play a game that will be actually ready in 2-3 years from the release date? no one. Thats why I stopped playing CoH2 pretty early back in the day because the game was not great, but eventually got better apparently. I never got to play that state of the game...
I hear you man. The industry is flawed.
It's because money, profits and margins are everything now, the creative people getting ruled by empty suits looking for the next Bonus payment.
That's why everything is crafted to "what the people want", except as the Video says in Art and games people often don't really realise what they would want until they see it and throwing together popular mechanics and tropes makes for a soulless entity.
Same issue with movies, they are so hellbent on giving the people the franchises "they want" and only produce garbage.
Yh people said they wished there was another Star Wars movie or Indiana Jones, because they loved that stuff and it's Nostalgic too, so the Suits smell easy money, don't have to put in effort just go by the numbers and produce bad movies, even better that creates its own PR, because the Internet is angry and can't stop talking about it.
Feels like every day there is 10 new Videos here on "what is wrong with new Marvel" and why Kathleen Kennedy is a Sith Lord. lol
Stop giving them your money damn it, that is the only language they understand.
A rather splendid RUclips channel has joined our algorithm! 🤭
It’s not that bad, but that is a great critic of the standards set for cinematics
That was a very well prepared video, thanks for the upload.
you are welcome :)
Spot on review. Relic seem to have gone from being inspired by the tales of valor (COH1) to being afraid of touching the subject of war (COH3). What a shame, really.
thank you :)
The only RTS that come close to Company of Heroes is Gate of Hell Ostfront. However I would class that as a RTS Hybrid more than just a RTS.
Wow you captured some great shots from the original games and have applied a layer of critique to the new game I hadn't even considered, because I always play multiplayer I hadn't seen any of those awesome cinematics. Anyway yeah it really looks like Relic just doesn't have that much interest in world war 2 because any armchair historian can see the lack of passion
yeah I mostly play Multiplayer too but there is a special place in my heart for the COH campaigns, well at least there used to be. glad you liked it man.
Since we already had Coh 1/2 and their expansions cover nearly the entire war (with the exception of the pacific theater), Perhaps it was time CoH 3 should have been made to take place in another conflict. Vietnam is a good candidate, lots of legendary movies were made about that war and that could have been used as reference like they did with the original CoH.
For anyone truly interested in a africa based ww2 game, I can't suggest Desert Rats vs. Afrika Korps enough. its like company of heroes made in 2004.
I love that game
Love COH1 the British voice lines in COH1 are the best. I dont particularly like any of the coh3 unit voice lines ( I know voice lines are small thing in the game but i really feel they added to the British faction and campaign)
Yeah i think that one of the main issues with CoH2 was not that it was based on a subpar moview tone-wise. But the fact that they gave up this idea of focusing on individual soldiers. If in CoH1 you actually feel bad for every squad you lose because of this feeling that these are actual people, in CoH2 you don't get this. You're just sending digital units into battle, not digital people.
Arguably this makes up for a better multiplayer experience (people don't turtle as much as they would otherwise), but the singleplayer loses massively from this.
It's also funny that even the DLC with the american troops feels the same exact way, so it's just the very way they designed the narrative/gameplay is like that. It's kind of similar with CoD1 - CoD2. CoD1 feels very grounded while CoD2 is a mindless massive action.
can i just say that, once again, hunger for money killed something beatiful?
How many times something truely unique is born, gainst followers and monies, then there is a 1-up in form of a sequel gaining even more monies and fans and then it all goes to shit loosing everything that it built on itself?
My wish for solving world peace would be for people to stop blindly beliving in power of coin and see what's truely important.
4:19, bit oops there.
But yea, this about sums up how happen to CoH series
Yeah I know what you mean, I put the wrong logo down. Apologies.
The title is so spot on i had to pause to think about it
Definitely underrated
coh3 looks like a fever dream
They really looked at people praising the Ardennes campaign and extracted the technical details. The squabble between the two allied generals was unique - I only wish it'd had more felt effects in the game. Make the choices harder and make it such that players are likely to lose some missions because one general has a stick up his ass. Even if it was impossible to recreate the atmosphere of stoic heroism that permeates the storytelling of the Eastern and Western Fronts, there is an atmosphere out there to latch on to, one which Relic sadly failed to do. Adding in the civilian side story didn't really hook me in; there were no emotional stakes to it. Have me play the policing and crackdown of local communities. You know what missions from CoH2 hit the hardest? The one where the conscripts rescue the protagonist commander from the rubble and get shot by the commissar for not disobeying orders to do so, followed by the one where you have to surround a German city and clear out escape attempts. War is always horror, and if Relic really wanted to reflect the impact of war on the civilian populations of North Africa and Italy they should have shown us the stories they told in the narration.
The difference in audio volumes between the shots is really annoying. I found myself constantly lowering and raising the volume to be able to understand and at the same time not be bothered by the sound effects. Other than that, great analysis and I agree 100% with the points made
I’m surprised they didn’t follow the gaming trend with minorities, because the Italian front would have been an interesting one, and could have been done right. For example, you could have the 100th Infantry Battalion made of Japanese Americans, the Brazilian Expeditionary Forces, and the Tuskegee Airmen providing support. I think it was a missed opportunity.
I hoped on launch and still hope that we get the flip side of the North African campaign, the British… and with luck a good story too. It’d be hard for them to mess one up when you have the SAS and LRDG running around with well documented accounts and colourful characters, along with interest given Rogue Heroes but one can only hope.
im actually making a video right now about that very subject, weird you brought it up lol
@@Rather.Splended.Cromwell lol, can't wait to watch it when it comes out. The British in North Africa is probably one of my favorite theaters of wwii
An analysis of a game in most parts inferior to previous titles, count me in !
Well done!! Agreed
!
thanks man :)
I think the fundamental mistake was to choose World War II as the scenario again. After 2 parts, the scenario is simply used up.
I, for one, would much rather have the Vietnam War as a scenario. More modern weaponry, amphibious and asymmetric warfare, jungle combat - none of which has been seen in a CoH before. Besides, there are more than enough pop culture references.
Korea's a very underutilized setting for games. Might be too much of a hot-button issue though still.
@@grant5580 Great idea! Because there are so many well-known games to the scenario, which have also sold extremely well! Oh wait....
Let's face it: Nobody cares about the Korean War anymore. - Apart from the (North) Koreans.
Agree with the take, seriously they could have taken cues from Tarantino, Italian spaghetti cinema, etc. and it would have been amazing
when i saw the first COH3 trailer i thought would be a squad base game like dawn of war 2
WOW👍
Thanks my guy :)
I suggested on a video months ago that a _Letters of Iwo Jima_ inspired campaign (if done right) would prove beneficial to the game. It would be one way to help humanize the soldiers in the game. Alas, Relic did not take up that advice for CoH 3.
The pacific would be a great refence for that game, if it were ever made.
I play this game for the multiplayer at this point. Sure coh 1 and coh 2 had good single player experiences but at this point i just play the multiplayer. I only played the first mission in the africa campaign in coh 3 so far.
yeah man I hear you, I'm a multiplayer man too but I feel like at this price, The game should have a solid campaign. Just playing the multiplayer is like buying a 60 Dollar Apple Pie and only eating the crust.
@@Rather.Splended.Cromwell i have almost 300 hours in the game so far, I know its not as good as the older games but i still enjoy it for what it is.
@@yosugami6275 yeah man, I get you, I'm putting int he hours too, enjoying the game, making a new video on COH3 as we speak. I'll see you on the battlefield. :p
Instead of another game that paid tribute to the men and women who did their duty, and served their home countries whether it be Germany, USA, Italy, Russia, Japan, ect, and also paid tribute to cinema, the game seems to pay homage to the woke agendas and politics. We are tired of the entertainment industry and corporations pushing their agendas on us, we just want to be entertained. There was no art, heart, or soul in this game.
The writers of COH3 appear to have no love for the history of WW2, the real reasons and emotions people fought, for those that honored their duty when their country called, or to even the Golden Age of Cinema/Hollywood. It is a shame in multiple directions.
I agree, and I'm not surprised. In the dev diaries, folks from Relic loved bragging about hiring "cultural experts" for the game... as opposed to actual WW2 historians.🤦♂
There is also Men of War Assault Squad 2. Another fantastic RTS game imo, but I've never actually played the game, I dont have a computer. I love watching people play the game especially with realistic mods and what-not. COH3 has recently been added to console, and since there are no actual images of the game on the store, and neither of the available trailers show actual full on raw gameplay, I had no idea what I would be buying until I saw this video
don't forget that relic has never been the same since the THQ layoffs, the studio nearly died - how many of the old relic people are still in?
There was an amazing series that took a look at the African campaign specifically the formation of the SS. So 1980 isn’t exactly the most recent.
hey man cool video. I just got one problem. Turn up your volume.
You've almost earned yourself a sub
ahahah! thank man, I'll try and win you over next time lol
1:56 Shaving Private Ryan
ahhaahhaha good man!
DO NOT read enemy at the gates by William Craig. Its a historical book with huge historical inaccuracies in it.
yeah another person let me know this not long ago as well. I obviously had no idea his credibility was in question but thank you anyways.
Every time i lost an Squad of Rifleman or Enginers i felt bad espacialy if the enginers had flamethrower
It would be neat if each company you deployed in the campaign map would be assigned a historical unit name (at least starting with those which fought in the campaign in reality, like 1/101st Abn company or whatever) and give us a little blurb about the unit's history in the real life version of the events, and maybe unique insignia, give it some sort of historical value.
Contextualize me, please.
It happened with Dawn of War III, and so with Company of Heroes III.
Great vid
COH really should just combine all theaters from previous games into one game, add the Pacific theater and it'll be the best game ever but nahhh.
The problem is that most corporate offices often will give projects to entirely different apartments with no skin in the game. In addition, it wouldnt surprise me if most of the hires were done on an ESG platform thus demanding a mediocre product in general, rather than masterful story making we know the creatives on payroll are capable of making.
I've never played a campaign or watched a cinematic in COH, I'm a pvp player only.
COH's failure for me was releasing an unpolished, unfinished, and refined game that destroyed the player base within a week of release.
Hey, im a PVP man too, but for that price tag (for me it was over £60.00, for that price every aspect of the game should have content and polish, not just the PVP (which is probably the best and most refined part of the game at this point and that saying something lol) But yeah, the failures this game has is wide and far reaching.
a fantastic video that puts into perspective a lot of what coh3 lacks
thanks for making it!
Thank you man
Fantastic video.
Thank you :)
As long as CoH2 has cinematic value for western audience, it's soviet campaign is really offensive and rusophobic for russian people. As well as "Enemy at the Gates" film. If anyone is interested in Stalingrad sniper duels - you can read about it in "Notes of a Sniper" book by Vasili Zaitsev himself.
Aside from that note, couldn't say better about CoH3. It's just soulless, buggy, unpolished, feels like slap in the face for CoH fans =(
Today's games really lack a connection with the players, lack of story telling , lack of reason to play it again.
well said brother
It’s more than likely those that made the originals with said focused ideas for a WW2 RTS are likely long since gone from the company. (hell as you pointed out we just had a bunch of layoffs recently) All that’s left at the moment are the cloth sniffers of game design
I agree with your critics, but to the fact about a movie or series, don't coh3 have SAS Rogue heroes to lean on?
Imagine the twin vickers jeeps, that would be awesome
My biggest issue with the new game is they took the grittiness out of it. Just looking at tanks fight in the new game it looks like they are shooting fireworks at eachother, and the sound effects dont help it. In COH2 if a king tiger shoots a churchill you know about it. The tank rocks when it gets hit, theres a loud ass bang as the KT fires and when it impacts a loud metalic whine and explosion. In COH3 theres next to no physical or audible indicators that a big gun just got fired, just a health bar going down.
Company of heroes will never capture the true essence of WW2 like men of war series did. In that game every soldier you command is expendable and will die in a single rifle hit. When you decimate a convoy soldiers on fire run around in panic and pain. Every tank that catches fire has a crew that catches fire too and try to exit the tank in panic. A tank crew will always operate and relaod tank shells faster then reguler troops. Darkness lowers accuracy and daylight or flares at night improves it. A german tiger tank will not go down no matter how many times you hit it with lower caliber shells like 75 mm and below. Unlike COH where only very specific units can destory heavy armor in men of war any unit can destory a heavy armor vehical or tank through strategy. Any infantry man can destroy a tank by HE anti tank granades or by using bazookas mines and AT-rifles to disable the tracks and then flank the tanks blindside and chuck an HE granade at it. I can go on and on about the depth of men of war series but if I did will take hours.
It’s weird the trailers and the cinematics show the allied soldiers being killed and going through adversity, where as COH 3 it seems like they said, “those evil Nazis can’t be shown winning at all!”
That is a very astute observation, I'm not fussed about seeing the fascists "winning" but I think the correlation between loos of life and hardship is important when instilling courage and discipline in the troops.
It’s super cool to hear some more veteran players perspective on COH, I’ve played since 2021 when the trailer for COH3 dropped, so I got COH2 to try and learn some mechanics. The biggest difference for me was that DAK and Wehrmacht don’t feel different enough, like American and Britain, Perfect! But maybe a true Italian faction and move DAK to the main and just sprinkle in the Wehrmacht cool stuff
I’ve played since coh 1 and I deleted coh 3 after a couple of weeks in. I still play coh 2 tho
Gameplay wise, the game is also broken as well. i have finished both campaigns and played a number of skirmish against the hardest AI.
The AI is rather dumb, and you can easily win the match if you play as the Americans and abuse the Combat Engineers' toughness and flamethrowers they are equipped with at the early game. Out of 3 varieties of man-portable antitank weapons (bazooka, panzershrek, and Boys AT rifle), only the panzershrek gives a decent threat to vehicles. Light vehicles just zooooom across the battlefield and the accelleration is even faster than race cars :D There are many visual glitches too that are laughable to look at.
in music department too, gone are the immersive battle musics of CoH2