On the whole, the pace of the game is as splendidly pitched as ever, allowing room to think and to counter, but never lacking tension. You counter with an infantry rush and I’ll be waiting with machine gun killzones at the ready.

You bring tanks, I’ll plant mines and force you onto the ice, or cripple their tracks. Instead, it escalates toward it, beginning with basic base construction, more flexible than in COH 1, and expanding into a miniature arms race. It’s a much more direct model of the slow-burn take on RTS that the original game and its add-ons excelled at and it’s tempting to say that it avoids the excess of the campaign, but that’s not entirely true. Pick a battle, either as the Soviets or the Germans, and master a map. Comprising singleplayer, co-op and competitive scenarios, it’s where the game shines brightest. As with the sound of my brain-cogs during a war, the Theatre of War is easy to miss among the noise and mess of the menu. I haven't bought anything but have unlocked unit abilities and decorations for use in skirmish by playing the campaign and against the AI in the Theatre of War mode. None of that, even the XP and DLC stuff, has much of an effect on the game. It’s cluttered and wants me to upload my failures and successes, or to paint a tank, or to preorder something or other. It looks more like a digital storefront than an actual game, advertising its (cosmetic) wares, double experience events and broadcasting possibilities. I debated whether or not it was worth writing a short paragraph about a bloody menu, but here I am, writing that paragraph. More men for the meatgrinder and no reason to care for the consequences. I actually scribbled ‘Call of Duty RTS’ on a piece of paper after following another arrow to another target and realising, once again, that constant reinforcements meant there was no danger or risk. There are times during the campaign when Company of Heroes 2 is so determined to show the scale and set pieces of war that the player takes the role of spectator, following the occasional signpost and using or collecting equipment as and when a commander swearily barks instructions.Īll of this combined to make my first impressions underwhelming. The sense of engaging in a skirmish or defensive action that is only part of an incomprehensible whole is as convincing as I’ve ever seen, sometimes distractingly so. The constant stream of allies and enemies pouring across many of the campaign maps, the planes and mortars shrieking overhead, and the battles occurring at the periphery all contribute to the sense of a larger conflict. Zoom in close and the grisliness of the scene is more apparent – explosions make meat of soldiers, and the dying crawl and stagger. The sheer visual splendour of combat and the might of the engine can make war a thing to goggle at, players peering at the screen like dogs on the wrong side of a butcher’s window, but it’s a grimy sort of spectacle. It’s hard to spot the company of heroes among the legions of anonymous dead and doomed, although the cutscenes, which provide a post-war reflection on the horror and guilt of the survivor, are often strong. The number of men dying on both sides of the conflict is terrifying, and the focal points of each map are soon clogged with bodies and the smoking ruins of machines.

Given the setting, the constant barrage of noise makes sense. The soothing click-click of the mouse is drowned out by the death rattle of machine guns and the occasional whirr of a brain cog is lost in the audible violence as the Eastern Front repeatedly explodes. It’s quite comfortably among the loudest strategy games in existence. But does the long-awaited sequel add anything more than enormous flurries and drifts of snow? I donned my thermal underpants and went to war.įor the first hour, Company of Heroes 2’s campaign threatens to be all sound and no strategy, fury without thought. That's what Company of Heroes 2 would have you believe at any rate, with a flashy new engine and a great deal of clamour presenting its conflict.

The Western Front isn't as quiet as you may have heard from other sources but the Eastern Front is almost certainly a great deal louder.

Company of heroes 2