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“Company of Heroes 3” Executive Producer Steve Mele Interview: “Wants to give more gameplay options RTS players of this era”

In an era where RTS-type games are gradually declining, Relic Entertainment, who has developed several well-known RTS such as “Homeworld” and “Company of Heroes”, seems to be dauntless amidst the torrent of the times, and continues to provide great RTS for fans of the genre alike, even in 2022. Nmia was honoured to be invited by SEGA to participate in the media’s online event, and was one of the first to try out their latest work in the “Company of Heroes” series, “Company of Heroes 3”, which fans have been yearning for many years. It is also a great honour to share a moment with the executive producer Steve Mele, where we conducted an exclusive interview. The following are the highlights of our interview with Steve.

“Company of Heroes 3” has undergone a total of three tests since its debut. Steve said that he has received a lot of interesting feedback, including suggestions for game lighting, as well as the way to control units. Others such as UI interface, visual Effects and bugs are the main part of the revision during this period, and because of this, the game was postponed under unavoidable circumstances.

As of the dynamic campaign gameplay that debuted in the series, the editor also asked Steve why the production team chose to introduce such a change in the Italian map. Steve believes that the series has laid the foundation in the first and second generations. They have created a game experience that core RTS players are keen on. On top of this, they have introduced a new dynamic gameplay in this game. They hope that through such innovations, To allow players to experience more different battles on the same map, and to delve into more different strategies.

Compared with the past, this title has launched two maps, namely North Africa and Italy. From the perspective of landscape, it is very different. From the trailer, it is obvious that the map of Italy has many complex terrains, surrounded by buildings. The terrain makes the army need to carry out more battles in the tight alleys. In contrast, North Africa is more of an open desert area. Taking the opportunity of this interview, we also want to know what kind of challenges the production team faced when designing two maps with very different styles. Steve believes that the development process this time has given the production team a completely different challenge. In Italy, they tried to design many buildings in the city, where there are many narrow alleys. He believes that the destruction system will play a big role. At the same time, enemy units will also be deployed more in these places, and many engagement scenes will be filled with various height gaps.

In the North African theatre, the game replicates the vast desert area of ​​North Africa, and the highly mobile army of the German African Army can formally achieve various unexpected tactics and goals here. Steve believes that the production team has considered what players will adopt,such as strategies to advance the front line, and then improve the design of the entire map and combat objectives.

This time “Company of Heroes 3” also brings a new destruction system. Players can blow up tall buildings and smash buildings, so that the rapidly changing battlefield has more landscape changes. Steve said that thanks to the new Essence engine, this game engine born for strategy games has brought many interesting features, such as PBR physical rendering, which makes the bullet holes and collapsed rubble on the battlefield extremely realistic, and these will generate different forms of cover available to the players even after its destruction.

“Company of Heroes 3” will open 1v1, 2v2, 3v3 and 4v4 multiplayer online battles on the first day of release, but it must be a great issue on balancing the gameplay experience, Steve deeply agrees with this. He believes that 3v3 and 4v4 are the most difficult to balance. After all, it involves 4 different camps. For this reason, they invited many players to participate in the test in the previous tests, and split each game into early and mid game in the replay. Later adjustments and optimisations will be made. In order to better understand the voices of players, they also directly hired enthusiasts from the community to help balance the game and make the game progress in the direction expected by the players.

The community player’s favourite modding tool will also be open to players this time. The Essence editor will allow players to use the map and scene editor to create game mode modules and adjust package modules. So will skin mods for modeling be available in the future? Unfortunately, Steve replied that the skin mod will not be available for the time being. Although it is not ruled out that there will be such a plan in the future, at present, only the above-mentioned mod functions will be available. Players who want to play skin mods may be disappointed for now.

We also asked Steve about the future plans of the production team after the release of the game. He excitedly said that the team has planned many follow-up updates, and they will continue to improve the game. When we asked whether the official release road map will be announced, and the answer is yes, players can look forward to the official follow-up updates.

At the end of the interview, we asked Steve to leave a message to the players of the “Company of Heroes” series. He hopes that you can enjoy this “Company of Heroes 3” in great joy. For the first time, it includes two campaign modes, Italy and North Africa, and units of 4 different camps. It is the largest “Company of Heroes” ever. In addition, there are many new game mechanisms such as Tactical Pause and Dynamic Battles waiting for players to experience this “Company of Heroes 3” brought by Relic Entertainment, which is committed to creating an excellent RTS.

The above is the key content of this interview. “Company of Heroes 3” will be released on February 23, 2023, on the Steam platform. If you want to follow more official latest news, you can click the portal to the official website or official Twitter to learn more.

| Sinx

Nmia Gaming – Editor | Sinx

A video game junkie with a high dependency on JRPGs and indie games alike, and is set out to dig out all the hidden gems(indies especially) out there.

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