Relic Entertainment has kicked off a Company of Heroes 3 multiplayer tech test, giving keen strategy heads one last chance to play the RTS game for free before its launch on PC on 23rd February 2023.
The MP tech test is now live and running until Monday 16th January at 18:00 GMT.
Visit the Company of Heroes 3 Steam page to sign up and take part.
The test will feature eight different maps set in both Italy and North Africa and offer up 1v1, 2v2, 3v3, and 4v4 matches, as well as play Skirmish vs AI, Annihilation Mode and create Custom Games. Players can also try out all four factions and the twelve Battlegroups. Oh, and in case you need it, there will the Mission Zero first time launch tutorial, but longtime armchair generals can skip that.
Of course, this isn’t pure altruism from Relic and Sega, as they need to prepare for launch by stress testing their servers and online infrastructure. They’re looking at three key areas of match performance, login capacity and speed and efficiency of the matchmaking process. To do that, they’ll be fiddling with back end set ups and what the game offers up to players through the tech test, so that testing queues are properly populated.
While feedback will also be gathered, Relic notes that it’s now too late to incorporate major changes to the game for launch. Any community feedback will go toward informing post-launch updates and development, but it’s worth remembering that Company of Heroes 3 was developed in collaboration with the Company of Heroes community. Relic has previously stated that over 200,000 players were involved with giving feedback and having an influence on how development progressed.
Company of Heroes 3 takes the series to the Mediterranean theatre of war. It will offer several different campaigns to play as well as four distinct factions to enlist in, and you’re given broader control over the war effort with a dynamic campaign map. This also means plenty of new vehicles and units to deploy, opening up a wealth of combat options. The game will feature some of the key battles from history, but with the sandbox style campaign map, you can expect for them to play out very differently to what you’ve read about in books or seen in The World at War reruns.
By the way, Company of Heroes 3 is also coming to PS5 and Xbox Series X|S sometime later in 2023.
Source: Relic
