Company of Heroes 3: Final Stand
Review

In Company of Heroes: Final Stand, Relic Entertainment has stripped away the campaign and PvP modes of CoH 3 in favor of offering a standalone roguelite wave-defense game with only this experience in mind.

It is a brilliant concept that provides true tactical challenges, but in its standalone form, the game is crippled by its high price point and limited content pool.

The Good: Excavation and Roguelite Mechanics

In Final Stand, the gameplay loop works excellently well. Players pick one of the four famous factions: US Forces, Wehrmacht, British Forces, and Deutsches Afrikakorps and defend their positions against 12 waves of enemies.

The way the game tries to innovate lies in the roguelite mechanics introduced. After every wave, players are offered a choice to unlock a random unit, off-map artillery strikes, or a passive ability for their battle group. This provides the right amount of randomness, making players adjust the defenses according to the given choices and not follow a preset strategy. The combat itself is classic Company of Heroes: positioning units in such a way as to provide an overlapping field of fire, using cover, and moving around to place anti-tank guns in the way of a moving boss unit feels very enjoyable.

Progression is achieved between runs through spending the earned currency on permanent upgrades in faction-specific skill trees.

The Bad: An Overgrown Game Mode

The longer I played Final Stand, the more its flaws became evident. The biggest problem is, of course, its value proposition. The developers are asking for quite a large entry fee for something that could have been either integrated into CoH 3 or released as a free-to-play mod.

There are only five maps available, and even though the wave-defense genre begs for multiplayer action, co-op is surprisingly limited to just two players. Moreover, the roguelite system implemented in the game doesn't give enough variation for multiple playthroughs. Perks don't provide game-changing abilities, making every run end with the same old "turtling": spamming bunkers or infantry until the player gets to the late-game armor.

Also, progression systems have several design flaws. "Endless Mode" becomes unlocked when the player manages to go through the initial 12 waves, but gives nothing except for bragging rights, because there is no progress in any way. Moreover, there is currently a mathematical flaw that doesn't allow the game to give enough points for players to unlock all skills in the skill trees of different factions.

The Verdict

Company of Heroes: Final Stand is a very enjoyable and focused game that will definitely satisfy your cravings for strategy. The gameplay is excellent, and co-op with another player is a lot of fun. However, the lack of maps, limited multiplayer, and confusing progression make this game look like an expensive standalone expansion, not a full-fledged game.