Company of Heroes 2: A Failed Advance

Time to Beat: 18.3 Hours

In 2023 Company of Heroes 3 received enough plaudits that I took notice.  Maybe you did to.  I played the original Company of Heroes in 2010, with 21.5 recorded hours. I couldn't recall much of my experience, except a vague feeling of dissatisfaction. If I was considering purchasing Company of Heroes 3, I reasoned, I should try Company of Heroes 2, unplayed in my Steam library, before paying for the sequel.

Company of Heroes 2 follows the perspective of Lieutenant Lev Isakovich. The story starts after World War II with Lev in a Soviet gulag. Condemned to death for treason during World War II, Lev is interrogated by his former commanding officer, Colonel Churkin. Through flashbacks, the player sees the war from Lev's eyes, from the start of the Soviet counter offensive in Moscow (1941). Each flashback during the interrogation is a key battle which the player fights to advance the plot.

Before beginning the campaign, the player chooses the difficulty (Easy, Medium, Hard), and like always, I chose the middle difficulty. Most battles feature famous eastern front conflicts, but the first is an unhistorical training mission on the outskirts of Moscow (1941), as the Germans push toward the city. The two following missions continue the Russian retreat, teaching the player the mechanics of Company of Heroes 2. 

CoH is a real-time strategy game. The player builds units from available resources; manpower, munitions, and fuel. The player rarely builds buildings. Units are squads of soldiers: Conscripts, Snipers, and Machine Gunners, or single vehicles like the T-70 Light Tank. The Soviet force measures thirty-three different units. Each unit also requires supply. Resources are spent immediately, while supply is used until the unit perishes. Supply limits the number of units the player can have on the game board at any time.

The next three missions follow Lev during the Battle of Stalingrad. Each level introduces a new type of unit or mission objective. While most missions allow the player to build new units, a minority require the player to win with their initial force. The best mission required the player to defeat a single German Tiger tank with only poorly equipped infantry in a snowy, dilapidated town.

A recurring theme of CoH 2 is the cruelty of the Russian commanders. In one scenario Lev watches his commander, Colonel Churkin, betray the common soldier, blowing up a bridge with Russians trapped on the far side. During the counter offensive in Moscow CoH 2 continually references order 227 (it is also used as a game mechanic). This historical order is colloquially known as the “Not A Step Back” order. In CoH 2 commanders use order 227 to justify sending their underlings recklessly into machine gun fire. When soldiers disobey, commanders order them shot. When Lev is trapped under rubble in a cinematic, a mission objective is to rescue him. After the player uses his forces to rescue Lev in this mandatory mission, the resulting cinematic shows Churkin ordering the executive of these men for abandoning their post. This depiction, of an army wide attempt by officers to slaughter their own men in pointless attacks is repeatedly smashed in the player's face. It's an absurd caricature that has only a limited relation to reality. Russian infantry may have been poorly equipped, elite commanders may have sacrificed men in poorly managed campaigns, and all armies suffer from deserters, but it's difficult to imagine officers callously disposing of their men, either by pointless attacks or mass executions.

Injured from the rubble, Lev is sent to a hospital, where another soldier tells him of the Battle for Leningrad. The Leningrad missions introduce the cold mechanic. Each infantry group displays a meter indicating how cold they are. When the meter fills to the top the unit dies. Sitting near a campfire empties the bar. This mechanic, while interesting, is also frustrating because of how fast the bar fills up. Then the mechanic disappears after two missions. Another interesting mechanic, the minefield, makes a similarly brief appearance.

After recovering from his injury, Lev becomes a Soviet journalist, sent to observe the Soviet advance in Belarus and Poland. He witnesses Russians enlist the aid of Polish partisans to subvert Germany, then betray them. The Poles are executed after their job is done. Churkin tells Lev, it does not matter how we win the war. We won, and we had to do what we did to win.

How should the player win? Company of Heroes 2 is an easy game as long as the player plays calmly. Across fourteen missions I only suffered two losses. First, despite CoH 2's attempts to pressure the player to act quickly, the event triggers in missions only proc when the player arrives at a specific location. The player should take it slow (except in a few situations). Pause often. I felt I was pausing too often during battles (every few seconds), which detracted from my enjoyment, but was essential for success. The enemy almost never plays offense. They sit back, with no interest in invading the player's base. They wait passively for their own destruction. They never pressure, but only defend, turning the game into a grind, not a tactical battle.

When advancing, remember, the enemy is stationary, so scout out each area. Then prepare the units. Use a combined force of snipers, mortar teams, machine gunners, and infantry to advance. Infantry advance in a leap frog fashion, taking cover, and revealing the foe. Mortar, machine gun, and sniper fire from behind, only moving forward when they are out of range. Each non-vehicle unit has four to six men. To replace casualties hire conscript infantry. These have the ability to slot in for killed men in other units. I rarely used conscripts to attack. Instead, I always had them ready to reinforce superior infantry. I rarely used tanks and other vehicles because they require so much supply.

Infantry are incredibly versatile. Many enemies drop weapons. These can be picked up, altering a unit's contribution. Lesser specialty weapons, like Light Machine Guns, Sub Machine Guns, and Hand held Anti-Tank Weapons, don't change a unit's composition, but boost its firepower. Dropped mortars, heavy machine guns, and Anti Tank turrets change the unit type. The problem with these is the lack of information. CoH 2 has different types of these weapons, but it doesn't provide numbers to distinguish their abilities. Should the player use the MG 42, DSHK, M2HB, MG 34, or Maxim? Only old websites dissecting the differences can tell the player the answer.

After four battles in Poland (one of which was still telling me how to place demolition charges), Lev tries to report on the execution of Polish resistance fighters. Because of this disloyal act he is reassigned to a dangerous division. He thinks the Soviet command is trying to kill him, but really they are giving him a front row seat to the Battle of Halbe and the Battle of Berlin, the final two missions, both inside Germany.

Across its fourteen missions Company of Heroes 2 features a good mix of mission types, from defenses against implacable enemies, to forced assaults against dug in enemies, to stealthy assassinations in the cold, to rescuing prisoners. While it succeeds at diversifying its objectives, the missions still feel remarkably similar because of the shallowness of scenario design and combat options. Every mission feels as if the player is being railroaded. CoH 2 is too focused on telling its caricature of Russian brutality. Missions are broken into a series of short term objectives that do not allow player planning. The amount of units allowed to the player (through supply) and the comparatively small size of the maps severely limits maneuvering. Even larger maps are made into a series of narrow tunnels that limit flanking or tactics. Company of Heroes 2 points to the next objective. Go here, fight these people face to face. Do this so we (the developers) can show you the next cinematic. Again and again. At one autosave, partway through the third mission, CoH 2 removed all my units and gave me new units in a different location. The whole game is too scripted. The player lacks control of their own game.

It doesn't help that combat is too straightforward. The enemy sits, waiting to be shot. The player can't maneuver to a superior position. CoH 2 doesn't have formations. Combat moves so fast, and the player can't zoom out enough to be able to see much of what is happening. That's why I had to pause so much, all of which ruins player immersion.

At the end of World War II, Lev tries to defect to the West, but is captured. Churkin interrogates him. The flashbacks have caught up to the present. Instead of executing the Lev, Churkin admits to agreeing with everything Lev says, justifying the caricature painted by the developers. He enables Lev's escape and commits suicide, knowing Stalin was going to order his execution anyways.

In Conclusion,

Company of Heroes 2 is a thoughtless game that deserves the same outcome as Churkin. Its story is a grating mess of a man witnessing a relentless brutalization of his countrymen by their commanders. The missions, while unique in objective, are undercut by the desire of the developers to insert themselves into each battle. The combat is simple, repetitive, limited by the perspective of the player, the passiveness of the opponent, and the narrow path of the maps.

Company of Heroes 2 is a real time strategy game that lacks opportunities for the player to use strategic thinking. Instead it squanders its design on a bland story to sell a talking point. No part of it leaves me excited to try the sequel.