Last week, the sequel to Company of Heroes was announced to be Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts. Games for Windows magazine nabbed the exclusive story and with the magazine in my hand, here are some juicy morsels. First up, Opposing Fronts is considered a sequel than just an expansion pack, in terms of that it’s standalone; it doesn’t need CoH to run but will benefit with CoH, and it’ll include double the campaign content. Relic Entertainment, who developed CoH, did this same tactic with Dark Crusade for Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War. Being a huge fan of CoH, here is some of the information in the magazine story. Stuff I didn’t cover include new tech trees, more unit explanations and of course, new screenies. Opposing Fronts is expected by the end of this year.
The two new campaigns involve the British and Canadian forces during the Gold, Juno and Sword beach landings and the subsequent battles at Caen and the German Panzer Elite. The British/Canadian units will be on the defensive side with soldiers able to dig foxholes for cover and adapting a new running stance when traversing through enemy territory; this new stance sacrifices running speed for better defensive capabilities and retaliation. Officers will display an aura and any soldiers in the aura will benefit from his stance. As for the foxholes ability, they are very useful for on-the-fly defense measures or long-term defense for resources. Armor will roll right over foxholes and enemy artillery won’t be able to clear them out so enemies will have to use grenades or flamethrowers to root them out. Lastly, British/Canadian forces can put up buildings very quickly since they are so mobile via Royal Engineers. While these units can put up buildings, they are also very vulnerable, which adds a new tactic to the game.
New British units include the standard infantry with rifles, to the Bren light machine gun. Another is the officer, who can acquire veterancy and as they rank up, they acquire new abilities. One of them is the aforementioned defensive stance aura while another is called "Heroic Charge," which automatically unsuppresses his squad. Captains, on the other hand, are the opposite of officers; they are the main defensive units. Sit them by a squad in a foxhole and everyone will have an increased defense rating and be less susceptible to suppression.
On the flip side, the German Panzer Elite are characterized for their fast and aggressive attacks. They’re able to crank out vehicles very fast so you won’t be doing a lot of defensive measures like the British. Various new units for them include the Hetzer and Marder III heavy tanks and the Fallschirmjagers, or German paratroopers. Along with aggressive tactics, the German armies can also stealth. Some units are able to stealth into enemy lines, booby trap some buildings or resource hot-points and then get out. As you can tell, the details of the Germans are much more scarce since Relic is still working on the details.
THQ received a lot of positive feedback from levels in CoH that had you take a position in one early mission and then having to defend that same position later in the game from enemy attacks — Hill 112 missions, for example. So it looks like you’ll be seeing more of that in Opposing Fronts. Another new level design is the weather and time, which can dynamically change during missions. Rain and nighttime can act as camouflage for armor or squads. Nick Carota, the game’s art director, said, "Part of war is persistence and we wanted to show that. Every environment develops an identify, and we’re adding to that with storms, sunrises…the story of these three days, of this battle, is specifically yours." Of course, DirectX 10 will be fully supported.
