Company of Heroes was brought to the public’s attention at E3 2005, but was still heavily in production at the time.  Now, after three years of work, the PC game is well on track for a scheduled release in Q3 2006.  If you’ve been living under a rock, here’s a quick rundown on what you can expect.
In wanting to make a game they would truly enjoy themselves, the developers built an RTS game that is truly dynamic, and one that doesn’t feature traditional choke points based on geography and other static game elements.  Instead, the game features a totally deformable world which you can use to your advantage.  Everything you see in the game can be destroyed, and we do mean everything.  To illustrate, imagine a flank attack that would strike at the heart of your opponent’s infrastructure, but a wall stands between you and your objective.  Instead of going around the wall, have your soldiers concentrate their attack on the wall to destroy a portion of it allowing you unfettered access to your enemy’s unprotected flank.  That kind of scenario is a simplified concept of some of the awesome things that can be done by using the terrain and buildings to your advantage.

No longer will you need to coddle your soldiers for fear their stupidity will be the death of them.  Such brilliant acts like standing in the middle of a street while under fire, or failing to utilize available cover nearby and offering themselves up as cannon fodder will be a thing of the past.  With Company of Heroes, your units will automatically seek any cover available to them, while still following the orders you provide to them.  That means running and crouching between cover points, and realizing that some cover is better than others.  During the course of battle, craters caused by artillery fire or mortar rounds will likely be created and these craters can provide cover for your men as they advance on an enemy’s position.

I keep coming back to it, but it’s the total deformation of the game environment that really adds a strategic element of its own.  An entrenched enemy may have every angle of attack covered, making it difficult to rout them out.  By calling in an artillery strike you can kill two birds with one stone, so to speak.  Not only do you eliminate some enemy units simply by death from above, by you also create a series of craters that your troops can use as cover during an attack. 

Yes, deformable buildings have been done before, but not to this degree.  Instead of 4 or 5 different stages of destruction for a building, there are over 40 different points on a building that can sustain damage.  The result is thousands of combinations for the state of disrepair a building can be in.  Since you can ensconce your troops within buildings, they naturally can make use of the windows and doors from which to attack or defend.  From a building that has sustained damage, your troops can make use of any holes or other structural damage for the same purposes.

Fully dual core compatible and SLI ready, the game provides excellent visuals that help convey the gritty realism of a war-torn world.  Coupled with the Havoc engine for physics, Company of Heroes promises to offer a single player and multiplayer (2-8 players) experience with real freedom of choice, and fantastic graphics for great gaming fun.