The Ice Tech Cometh: Company of Heroes 2 Re-Dated

One of the many unhappy aspects of the death (sort of - the name still exists and I wouldn't be terribly surprised to see it return in some form later on) of THQ is that it had several projects really very close to completion when the axe fell. Foremost, perhaps, of those were Metro: Last Light and snow-bound WW2 strategy game Company of Heroes 2, but fortunately (we hope) both have found new homes. Metro's with Koch, and Company of Heroes 2 is with SEGA, as is all of Relic - making the house of hedgehog, who also own the Creative Assembly, an unlikely bastion of real-time strategy.

COH2 has a new release date - later than planned but not very far away. It is... Read the rest of this entry..

Nah, only joshing. It's in June this year.

June 25th, specifically. They're planning a closed multiplayer beta ahead of that and claim that the additional time "will help the team deliver the high quality sequel fans deserve." And also finish all the no-doubt incredibly complicated paperwork that the change of ownership entails, perhaps.

From my very limited experience with it so far, COH2 is a very traditional sequel - much like the parent game but with tweaks, bells, whistles, a fancy-pants new weather and destructible terrain system and - sharp intake of breath - some microtransaction stuff. Be interesting to see what of the latter remains under the new boss, who haven't tended to do too much in that realm. The world is changing, though.

COH2 can still be pre-ordered on Steam in the hope of unlocking bonus stuff like TF2 hats, in-game boosts and free copies of Dawn of War games, if you're into that particular kind of gambling.