While we will not be seeing the full game until next year, the World War II RTS Company of Heroes 3 will be getting a free multiplayer Pre-alpha starting tomorrow. During this period players will be able to play Single-player skirmishes and multiplayer matches for a week, courtesy of publisher SEGA and developer Relic Entertainment.
Included in this will be four maps, set in the Italian Theater, as well as two playable factions in the form of the US and the Wehrmacht. Both of these factions will feature multiple battlegroups for the player to use. The American faction will have USF Airborne and Armored battlegroups which allows you to drop infantry or weapons onto the battleground, or play a support role and steal your enemy’s vehicles. Conversely, the Wehrmacht will have the Luftwaffe air defense.
Company of Heroes takes a real-time strategy approach to World War II. The play controls all of their units from an over-mode and tries to make on-the-fly decisions that can shift the war effort towards them. While it doesn’t feature the boots-on-the-ground element of first-person shooters like Call of Duty, its large-scale battles, with a high volume of troops, still offer the chaotic and frantic feel.
The franchise was initially owned by THQ and developed by Relic. They developed the first game in 2006, following it with several expansions and even an attempt at a free-to-play game attempt before THQ went bankrupt. After this, Sega acquired Relic and the team developed a follow-up, Company of Heroes 2 in 2013. When the next installment is released in 2022 it will mark the first entry in the franchise in nearly a decade.
The Multiplayer demo is available to pre-load from steam now and will be available at 9 AM PT on November 30. It will then run through to 8 pm PT on December 6. First, however, you will need to sign up for ‘CoH-development’ program, which will also let you into future previews as well.
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