Company of Heroes 2

Company of Heroes 2 is the highly anticipated 2013 sequel to Relic Entertainment’s groundbreaking World War II real-time strategy game.

The development of this sequel was born in fire. During its production, original publisher THQ went bankrupt and collapsed. Relic Entertainment was subsequently purchased at auction by Sega, who successfully carried the game to the finish line. While the first game perfectly captured the heroism and cinematic flair of the Western Front, Company of Heroes 2 shifted the camera to the Eastern Front. It traded the Band of Brothers aesthetic for a brutal, freezing, unforgiving meat-grinder, focusing on the colossal clash between the Soviet Red Army and the German Ostheer.

The Campaign and the Massive Controversy

The single-player campaign is framed through the memories of Lev Abramovich Isakovich, a former Soviet army officer who has been imprisoned in a Siberian gulag in 1952. As he is interrogated by his former commanding officer, players play through flashbacks of the Eastern Front’s most pivotal and brutal battles, from the defense of Stalingrad to the fall of Berlin.

However, the campaign sparked a massive international controversy. Relic leaned heavily into the grimmest, most brutal Hollywood tropes of the Red Army (heavily inspired by films like Enemy at the Gates). The narrative featured Soviet commanders ruthlessly executing their own retreating soldiers (Order 227), burning down Russian homes with civilians inside to deny the Germans resources, and treating infantry as completely disposable cannon fodder.

The portrayal was so deeply offensive to Russian and CIS players—who viewed it as historical revisionism that disrespected the millions of Soviet casualties who stopped Nazi Germany—that a massive petition was launched. The backlash was so fierce that the game’s Russian distributor, 1C Company, entirely halted digital and physical sales of the game across the CIS region.

Gameplay Innovations: TrueSight and ColdTech

Mechanically, the game was built on the brand-new Essence Engine 3.0, which introduced two revolutionary systems that completely changed how competitive Company of Heroes was played:

TrueSight: In traditional RTS games, “line of sight” is a simple circle around a unit. TrueSight changed everything by calculating vision dynamically based on physical objects. If an enemy tank is parked behind a stone building, you literally cannot see it until your infantry walk around the corner. Smoke grenades became incredibly powerful tools, physically blocking the enemy’s vision and allowing for terrifying, close-quarters ambushes.
ColdTech: The Eastern Front was defined by its brutal winters, and the game simulates this flawlessly. On winter maps, infantry left outside of cover will slowly freeze to death. Deep snow physically bogs down tanks and exhausts sprinting soldiers. Furthermore, the ice on frozen rivers is fully dynamic; you can drive a heavy tank onto a frozen lake, and the enemy can fire a mortar at the ice to crack it, sending the multi-ton vehicle sinking to the bottom of the river.
Vaulting: A small but massively impactful addition. Infantry squads could now fluidly vault over low walls, sandbags, and fences, keeping their momentum during a flanking charge rather than clumsily pathfinding around a long fence line.

The Commander System and Monetization

Company of Heroes 2 heavily altered the meta-progression of the original game. Instead of choosing between three fixed Doctrine trees mid-match, CoH2 introduced the Commander System.

Players built a “loadout” of three specific Commanders before a match began. Once inside, you locked in one of these Commanders, which granted you five highly specific global abilities or call-in units (like a massive IS-2 heavy tank, an IL-2 Sturmovik strafing run, or the ability to drop partisan fighters behind enemy lines).

While the system allowed for incredible build diversity, it was highly criticized at launch for its monetization. Relic introduced a massive store where dozens of unique Commanders were sold as premium DLC or unlocked via a brutal, RNG-heavy grinding system, leading to early accusations of “pay-to-win” mechanics.

A Decade of Expansions

Despite its rocky launch, Relic supported Company of Heroes 2 relentlessly, turning it into one of the most content-rich strategy games on the market through several massive expansions:

The Western Front Armies (2014): A standalone multiplayer expansion that brought the game back to the West, introducing the highly adaptable US Forces (USF) and the elite, heavily armored Oberkommando West (OKW).
Ardennes Assault (2014): A highly acclaimed, single-player dynamic campaign focusing on the US Forces during the Battle of the Bulge. It featured a persistent world map where company casualties were permanent across multiple missions.
The British Forces (2015): The final standalone faction addition, reintroducing the defensive, emplacement-heavy British Army to the multiplayer sandbox.

Development and Legacy

Released in June 2013, Company of Heroes 2 had a famously turbulent first year. Between the narrative controversy, the microtransactions, and initial balance issues, traditionalists heavily criticized it.

However, Relic Entertainment completely turned the ship around. Over the course of the next decade, they overhauled the game’s economy, rigorously balanced the five asymmetrical factions, and embraced community-made maps and balance patches. By the end of its life cycle, CoH2 had vastly surpassed the original game’s player count, reigning supreme as the undisputed king of modern WWII RTS games until the eventual release of Company of Heroes 3 in 2023.

Key Features:

The Eastern Front — Command the Soviet Red Army or the German Ostheer in the most brutal, freezing, and high-casualty theater of World War II.
TrueSight Fog of War — Master a revolutionary line-of-sight system where buildings, smoke, and terrain realistically block unit vision, allowing for lethal ambushes.
ColdTech Weather — Battle the elements as blizzards freeze your infantry to death and heavy tanks shatter the ice on frozen rivers.
Five Asymmetrical Factions — Play the definitive WWII sandbox, eventually featuring the Soviets, Ostheer, US Forces, OKW, and the British Army.
The Ardennes Assault — Experience one of the greatest RTS campaigns ever made in the 2014 expansion, featuring a dynamic, non-linear map of the Battle of the Bulge.