Though players are tasked with controlling German forces under Erwin Rommel during combat, each battle is bookended by diary entries and cutscenes describing the horrors faced by Libyan Jews persecuted by their Axis occupiers in the Holocaust and treated with deadly indifference by the British forces that opposed them.īy shifting the perspective of a WWII strategy game to focus on those typically ignored by the genre, Company of Heroes 3 finds value in reworking what’s come before. The highlight in this sense is the North African levels’ narrative. Speaking of Relic’s choice of setting, Mele says the team “also wanted to tell powerful stories that show the devastating impact that the war had on the local populations of the region.” Mele noted that these locations also drew “armies from all over the world,” which allowed Relic to incorporate less frequently represented forces, like Indian artillery companies and Gurkha units, into the game.

The deserts of Libya and Egypt and tank battles of the North African campaign provided one part of this, the rolling hills and infantry-led fighting of Italy another. Mele says Relic sought to provide players with “interesting new perspectives” on the Second World War, deciding to set the game within the Mediterranean theater to showcase other aspects of the conflict not depicted as often in games.

World war 1 company of heroes