That said, again I contest the application of “Heroes” to anything to do with Wo rld War 2, as it was not a heroic conflict and the allies were not the flag-waving giants that they are so commonly depicted as in modern media. The other campaign is marginally better, in that you’re playing as the allies in the Italian campaign. Therefore it is, in fact, entertaining to control the units in combat, in stark contrast to the misery the story insists they were causing. It is fun to do that because, again, Relic Entertainment set out to do its job as a game developer and make a fun game. Never mind that this isn’t particularly well-written, the approach falls flat because it presents players with some hardcore dissonance between the messaging of those cutscenes, and the gleeful way that you’ll then roll the German tanks through towns as you blow everything up as you go. Now, because the developers of Relic apparently realised that there would be a problem with presenting Rommel and his forces as heroic, the story instead takes place from the perspective of a Jewish African caught up in the conflict, and is narrating the battles as they arrive on his doorstep. This is the one where you play as the Germans, and yes, you’re thrown into Rommel’s shoes.

The African campaign, which is one of the two campaigns in Company of Heroes 3, is a really good example of this. This inherent tension between what a developer wants to make and is capable of, and what World War 2 is and represents, leads me to think that most developers that make games about World War 2 should not do that. World War 2, meanwhile, was not fun, and should not be treated as an opportunity for light entertainment. Furthermore, most game developers are not particularly focused as artists, and struggle to grapple with the complexity or nuance in the themes of their works. There’s an inherent tension in game development. Especially ones as politically loaded (and, sadly, too relevant again in 2023) as World War 2. I will always be wary of game developers tackling real-world, modern conflicts. The console release obviously doesn’t change things there. Thankfully the storytelling in this game is merely incompetent, and so, back when the game launched on PC, people just focused on the gameplay bits instead.

If the story was in any way effective, this would have been an enormously controversial game. So in a game titled “Company of Heroes 3” you get to play as the Germans (the, uh, World War 2 Germans) in one of the game’s campaigns.

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