Company of Heroes 3 Developer Diary Discusses Art and Authenticity, Including Realistic Dirt

With so many big releases still to come this year, it’s easy to forget about Relic Entertainment’s Company of Heroes 3. The real-time strategy title is in development for PC and features World War 2 combat on a much larger scale. It’s also more realistic, as revealed in the latest developer diary, right down to the dirt.

Discussing authenticity, principal artist Kristian Bourdage says that, “The type of dirt that you would see on the terrain is the type of dirt that will appear on your vehicle.” You can also expect more dynamic damage – depending on where bullets impact your vehicles, the damage will be properly reflected in those areas. Extensive work on the patches, helmets and insignia for soldiers that belong to specific divisions is also being done.

Gunshots, smoke and other effects will be exceedingly true-to-life as well. As Senior artist Michael Mussellam notes, “Effects in our direction for Company of Heroes 3 is in the same vein as in Company of Heroes 1 and 2, but closer to the realism end of the spectrum instead of the Hollywood end of the spectrum…We try to create this authentic experience. For effects, it’s going through all of the references that we could possibly find.

“We watch reams of World War 2 documentaries, read some books, technical diaries, just to try and get a sneak peek at what this weapon looks like when it fires, what happens. What does an explosion look like in real life?”

Company of Heroes 3 doesn’t have a release date, instead being slated for a late 2022 launch. For more details on destruction, environmental variety and so on, head here. You can also learn about the new dynamic campaign here.