As early as July this year, the official conveniently pulled off the mysterious veil of the third part of the "Hero Company" series, and loudly announced that "Hero Company 3" will land on the PC at the end of 2022, and at the beginning of this month, this game has ended the multiplayer alpha test and has now been listed on the Steam Mall page.
Screenshot of the game "Heroes 3"
This is an RTS game developed by the Mine Society and published by Sega, can the third-generation work that players have high hopes for become the "last glory of RTS" as it once did to the gods of the RTS category, as the player said?
Official live demo of "Company of Heroes 3"
Here, I would like to quote a classic quote from Spiergeant Lenny's letter in the end interview of Spielberg's "Company of Brothers": "One day my little grandson asked me if I was a hero in the great war, and I replied, no, but I fought with the heroes." （No, but I served with a company of heroes.） ”
The "Company of Heroes" series is derived from the above passage in the letter, heavy but powerful.
The picture is a historical rut that overwhelms the player's mind
War is cruel, "veterans do not die, just wither", the game known as the "ninth art" takes over the banner of cultural spiritual inheritance, intending to hand over this tragic history of war seriously and truly to countless people living in the beautiful present, and then the "Company of Heroes" developed by the Mine Society, the first work of the World War II RTS game "Hero Company" series was born in September 2006.
Heroes 3 Developer Log
This is a cross-era RTS masterpiece, even after 15 years of today's work still maintains a 94% Steam praise rate, the first generation of the series is like a pot of old wine, the longer the fragrance, the player is even more emotional: "Every tank, every soldier, every piece of debris has used havok, COH is the first." ”
The player's emotional touch is wrapped around its excellent game effect presentation, which constantly gives the "Hero Company" series the impetus to move forward. Four years later, under the player's expectant eyes, the second game pushed the door out and stood in front of the majority of players in a beautiful posture.
Screenshot of "Heroes 2"
It may be due to the excessive excellence of the first game, or the wavering of the team's original intention, which led to the decline in the reputation of Mine's "Heroes 2", and players praised it mixedly: the remarkable game mechanics provided players with a richer space for strategic thinking, but the slightly distorted war scenes, the lack of care in the tank model and the ugly eating appearance of the "DLC Clip DLC" can be described as deeply stimulating to every player.
After "falling" from where to get up, the Mine Society has painfully corrected the direction of exploration, and after knowing the importance of players to the game, the development team adopted a research and development model that was not used: collecting suggestions and inspiration in the player community, and sending out questionnaires to the outside world. "From the first day of developing Heroes 3, we started working on this model and achieved impressive results." Producer David Littman said.
Players generally hope that "Heroes Company 3" can inherit the classic war style of the original work, obviously the development team noticed this, using modern and better technology to make better repairs to the war scenes, but at present, according to the real machine video and the content of the A test, the overly bright picture colors are more or less contradictory in the serious context of World War II, but is this violation due to the restoration of the italian battlefield environment with strong lighting, or the team intentionally?
We don't know exactly, but judging by the flames emanating from the mouth of the flamethrower and the fire from the tank armor, the acclaimed details of the original work are finally reproduced in this work.
Not only that, from airplanes and battleships to soldiers and pawns, it is like a life that really lives in reality: they will chat with each other in action, they will groan like real people when they are injured or even killed, etc. "The game uses exquisite and realistic new rendering technology and particle special effects technology, whether it is flames, sand or smoke, the visual effects are excellent." The development team described: "The upgraded version of artificial intelligence combined with realistic and smooth soldier animation allows each squad to show the most realistic battlefield reaction in front of your eyes." It can be said that the moods and sorrows of the non-commissioned officers and troops controlled by the player have been extremely realistically restored under such careful production.
From visual to auditory, the Mine Society team provides players in front of the screen with a game experience that can be called a war blockbuster, and each battle story will burst out more interesting, better immerse players in the scene environment, and experience the baptism of war with them to some extent, which will produce a military bond that is difficult to give up. On the other hand, while players experience the cruelty of war in an immersive way, the development team is more in the process of triggering a deeper sense of thinking: today's peace is so hard-won that we should cherish it.
Unique engines, new battlefields and sub-generation gameplay combine to bring more possibilities
From the perspective of the second generation of the Soviet Red Army to the main battlefield of the Mediterranean, the Allies led by Britain and the United States and Italy and Germany around the sea line of communication to carry out regional battles, it can be said that the Mediterranean battlefield and the European battlefield, the African battlefield is directly related, but also has an important impact on the Atlantic battlefield, Southeast Asia battlefield.
"Hero Company 3" uses a realistic vision system, the difference in altitude will have a significant impact on the vision of the unit, so the difference in altitude between the mountain map and the coast map may lead to the player need to develop a variety of plans to ensure the victory of the battle, such as deserts, plains and other terrain requires players to carry out cautious reconnaissance at the same time, take a more bold armored force combat strategy, in a certain point of view, the importance of terrain intelligence even exceeds the strength of the unit, how to rationally deploy troops or will become the first problem to test the player.
The new battlefield is equipped with the Mine Society's exclusive Essense game engine, what does this game engine bring to players? In response, the development team said: "In the game, each location is a completely destructible sandbox, whether it is mortar shells or naval gun fire, it will make players feel the violent bombardment and impact." "In simple terms, the addition of this engine takes the game's authenticity and strategy to the next level. For example, the use of heavily guarded buildings to use Tarzan to crush the enemy squad; soldiers can use newly formed ruins and craters as dynamic bunkers.
As can be seen in the figure above, the game adopts a large map similar to "Three Kingdoms of The Whole War" and "Civilization" to help players carry out global strategic deployment, and will also be transformed into an instant battle map in the face of key battles, which improves the game strategy while allowing players to contact a more realistic and comprehensive battlefield, which means that players not only need to do a lot of logistical work, consider the deployment location of their own troops, but also face short-term real-time combat.
At the same time, in order to achieve the game's campaign mode, the Mine Society created a repeatable experience with the dynamic campaign map, which worked greatly in the previous generation of 'Ardennes Assault'. The connection between the strategic campaign map and RTS combat is like a secret killer, which is obviously a natural extension of commanding the battlefield.
With the blessing of the new battlefield and unique engine, the sub-era level gameplay is even more shining, what is the sub-era level gameplay? For example, in the game, players can customize their own troops, if you want to experience the air force, no problem, the player can build a large number of air forces and apply them to strategy, campaigns, of course, players need to occupy the airport to manage the aircraft inventory, and if there is no landing location and gas station, then fighters and bombers will become scrap iron.
"The game has added a new content - the tank has side armor, this element will play an important role in the game's vehicle combat, with this feature, the player will be more comfortable with sneak attacks, after successfully completing the side attack tactics, will also get a stronger sense of achievement." The development team said.
Looking at the game as a whole, it is not difficult to find that the focus of "Hero Company 3" is more inclined to how to use bunkers for fire suppression, flanking attacks, retreating to advance, or using fortifications, using combined fire and indirect fire to attack the enemy, all of which may form a silky smooth combat rhythm.
Innovation does not forget the classic, three generations of the future can be expected
The gameplay mechanism of this work is the same as that of the original work, tracing back to the roots, the "Hero Company" series actually inherits the gameplay of "Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War" under the Mine Society, and in the classic masterpiece "Moving Ground on the Head" can also be said to stand on the shoulders of giants and look far away, so it seems that the "Hero Company" series of gameplay is called the sub-era level is not accidental.
In the current environment of lack of RTS masterpieces, its debut next year is bound to re-inject fresh blood into the series of works, and what is more, the work may provide impetus for activating the creativity of this section to some extent, and it is expected to be launched as soon as possible, under the proper development and operation of the Mine Society, "Hero Company 3" has the opportunity to surpass the first work, and the future can be expected.
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