Company of Heroes 2: Ardennes Assault (PC)

Developer/Publisher: Relic Entertainment/Sega
Release Date(s): Nov. 17, 2014
Genre(s): Real-time strategy
Platform(s): Windows
Language(s): English; full localization for German, French, Spanish, Russian, Polish; interface and subtitles for Italian, Czech
Pricing: $39.99 USD / €35,99 EUR / £29.99 GBP
Rating: M (ESRB), 18 (PEGI), 16 (USK)

The first standalone expansion to Company of Heroes 2, The Western Front Armies, focused on multiplayer gameplay. Relic Entertainment’s latest offering, Ardennes Assault, however, is a single-player campaign featuring the dense snow-covered forests and rugged terrain of the borderlands between France, the Low Countries, and Germany. Historically, the purpose of the Third Reich’s Ardennes Offensive was to weaken the Allied forces along the Belgian border with a surprise attack and to recapture the port of Antwerp. What has gone down in history as the “Battle of the Bulge” involved over a million men on the Allied side, making it one of the largest and most costly land battles involving the US Army in the Second World War. This test review should let you know whether they’ve done a good job of packing this momentous engagement into an RTS game. 

Back to the Front

What makes the campaign in Ardennes Assault special is the dynamic approach it takes, in which the 18 missions don’t proceed in any set fashion, but instead you move your GIs about like on a chessboard from sector to sector, gaining more and more ground each time you complete a mission. Your objective is to capture all the territory held by the enemy and to push back the German reinforcements. It is up to you to decide which of three companies – infantry, air force, or support – you want to take into battle on each of the snow-covered sectors on the map. 

Each company possesses special abilities that will significantly influence how the battle plays out. Able Company, led by Johnny Vastano, has the ability to call in air support in the form of airborne troops and airstrikes; Baker Company, led by Captain Edwards is able to use artillery and armor to take out large groups of enemies at once; Dog Company, under the command of Captain Derby, specialize in ground combat and use heavy machine guns and rocket launchers against the enemy. They are also able to rely on the help of skilled combat engineers. 

The objectives in the main missions are on the one hand very diverse: relieve your comrades who are penned in by the enemy and then break the enemy lines together, secure strategic positions on the map so wounded soldiers can be evacuated; another mission has you pressed for time as you figure out the fastest way to intercept a Wehrmacht convoy before it’s fully loaded and leaves the scene.  There are also spontaneous events and optional objectives to provide a change of pace. For example, you might be asked to eliminate a high-ranking German officer in addition to your main objectives, and if you do so you will receive better rewards and a higher score. On the other hand, there are a lot of situations where you’re expected to hold a position for a certain amount of time while defending against yet another Wehrmacht attack wave. 

Every man counts

If you’re familiar with RTS games, or if you’ve played other games in the Company of Heroes series, you’ll probably have no trouble learning the ropes in this one, and soon you’ll be building production sites, placing machine gun nests firmly in the ground, and directing tanks along snow-covered roads. If you’re new to the genre, however, you might have a little bit of difficulty getting used to the title’s tactical demands at first. Thankfully there are some tutorial videos for you to check out, and you can also activate tips that will explain the most important aspects of gameplay as well as how to use individual unit types. Nevertheless, new players had better brace themselves for a steep learning curve right in the first mission, with no time to breathe or get their bearings. After all, the Germans will not rest in their efforts to beat you back, and they will continue to hit you with elite troops, powerful tanks, and Volksgrenadier units, not letting up until you’ve significantly thinned their ranks. 

The more intensified strategic element in Ardennes Assault is in large part a result of the game’s demanding level of difficulty. You are able to save your game during a mission, but if you’re not very careful in making your advance, you’d better be ready to pay some heavy consequences. Since your three companies only have a certain number of requisition points (RP) at their disposal, and you have to use these each time you call for reinforcements, heavy losses can bring about situations where you won’t be able to send any more troops into the field. Worst-case scenario, this can put the skids on your whole campaign. It’s only when you give a company some respite from the nonstop carnage that the units in that company will start to recover their strength. This means you’re going to have to give a hell of a lot of attention to each unit, thoroughly analyze the battlefield as well as the enemy’s strategy, and do your best to make most intelligent tactical decisions. You can really feel the pressure of impending defeat looming over you – every solider that falls to an enemy bullet is a painful loss.

Really, though – as the game goes on, troop strength becomes a more and more decisive factor in determining the fate of your campaign. Lots of times you’ll think you’ve backed the enemy into a corner when he’s suddenly able to mobilize new forces and launch a devastating counteroffensive. This concentration of enemy forces, who will pound you relentlessly with all the firepower they’ve got, will create some difficulties for you, especially in the last few missions of the campaign. This is due to the somewhat poorly balanced enemy AI, which is able to give itself unfair advantages when things get desperate though the use of superior equipment, veteran troops, and snipers. Since your own troops will at this point be incredibly ragged and worn down from the constant fighting they’ve been engaged in, this leaves you absolutely no room for error.

These are some pretty demanding conditions to be sure, but on the flipside, endurance, tactical finesse, and stubborn willpower are honored and rewarded in Ardennes Assault. Every time you complete a mission, you receive requisition points, which you can use to upgrade or reinforce your company. Upgrades not only reduce equipment costs, but also get you things like extra machine guns, which are airdropped in with the troops. You can also decide to promote individual soldiers to veteran status, whose experience will give them a significant role in deciding the course of the mission and whether it will end in victory or defeat. You can also use requisition points to recruit fresh troops, so you’re left with the tough decision whether you want to increase your overall capabilities, make your individual units more effective, or swell your ranks with reinforcements.

It’s cold outside

From a distance, the graphics in Ardennes Assault are really impressive. The effects especially are worth a look: deadly artillery blasts blow trees apart like matchsticks, reduce whole streets to rubble, and leave a sea of craters behind on the map. Columns of smoke and dense fog creep into bombed-out villages and fill half the screen, while flaming patches of forest bathe the wintry landscape in an ominous red glow. Snowstorms and a scripted day/night cycle also do there part in contributing to this highly convincing atmosphere.

But if you zoom a bit closer to the action, you’ll start to notice some ugly textures in both the landscape and the units themselves. It would also have been to nice to have a more flexible camera perspective that would let you zoom out further in order to get a overview of what’s going on. Instead, you’re stuck scrolling back and forth between individual operations stretched out across the vast battlefield so as not to miss out on anything.

With the sound design, however, there is very little to complain about. The voice acting is good and features a wide range of commentary and commands. This is supported by a background mostly made up of gunshots, explosions, and engine noises. With all the battleground noises and stalwart generals bellowing commands on the radio, the game is able to achieve a high degree of authenticity. And although it easily gets lost among all the sound effects, the orchestral background music adds just the right tone to the battlefield atmosphere.