With two full single-player campaigns along with skirmishes and multiplayer, there’s plenty to do in Company of Heroes 3. But some of us like to make our own fun. And we’re in luck, as this third installment will launch with mod tools and Steam workshop support on day one. Mods have been a big part of the RTS scene back in the 90s, with entire genres like the now hugely popular MOBA spawning from user-generated maps. Relic is fully aware of this, and that’s why they decided to ship the new Essence Editor upon release.
“From the very beginning, having modifiers has always been a priority as part of our story. We’ve been rethinking what that might look like in terms of time. But as we’ve seen it, we’ve never been able to do that. seen many times with a truly invested community group “…” It’s an important beat and hopefully a love letter to the creators who have been with us for a long time in our community. , for day one ready-to-go tools and editors”.
To be ready for launch, the initial release of Elite Editor will be slightly limited. Notably, custom unit skins and meshes are not yet supported – although you can mix and match different clothing items and accessories from existing units in Company of Heroes 3 to create custom kits.
“Our modding community really helped us understand what was the most impactful and highest priority in the toolkit. So what we initially thought was extremely important, like such as swapping assets or creating skins, are actually lower on the priority list, and what is higher is modifiable, being able to implement its own modes, scripts, and even maps. surname. “
Option
One of the key parts of this implementation is a sort of all-in-one balance mod that Relic calls tune rhythm. If you’re the type of World War II RTS fan who has a very specific opinion on the speed and armor penetration on the Tiger II or simply wants bigger battles with more people on the screen. figure, then this is where you can solve the problem with your own hands.
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“A tweaking pack that really allows players to balance the game in their own way. To make some units stronger, some weaker, faster, slower.” … “You can mess with pop caps and all that kind of features. It can affect performance if you raise it too high, so use your discretion.”
Mod tools have come a long way since Company of Heroes 2 was phased out almost a decade ago. And Relic was faced with the challenge of both expanding what their tools could do, and trying to keep them usable and learnable by today’s standards.
“I think these tools will be much more user-friendly and well-received than Company of Heroes’ previous tools. We’ve spent a lot of time making quality-of-life improvements, improvements. workflow, improved collaboration.”
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“What we’re seeing and offering is more possibilities in creating new maps, atmospheres. You can even do a lot of different terrain casting and mesh management, this is what we’re talking about. that’s great, but we’ve also added a lot of lua capabilities, so a much richer scripting environment, so you can build new, different types of modes that you haven’t before ever had. “
“You can adjust the time of day. You can switch the time of day from morning to night. We have a new cloud system. You can create custom clouds that are all animated. and shading. So you can do a lot of things visually with the editor.”
Fog of War
The total number of conversion mods is already high on the community’s priority list, and like skins and custom models, it’s something that won’t be ready for launch. But if you want to build some of the individual missions set outside the theaters of Company of Heroes 3’s Italian and North African campaigns – it’s a World War after all – you should have quite a few. tools to do that.
“If someone wants to make a map of Normandy or something else on the Western Front, they can actually use the assets we’ve provided.” “We really have a lot more than we had in the past in terms of natural topography. Rocks and things like that. Foliage, a lot of which is native to all over Europe.” “The architecture is very similar. So you can definitely stay away from some of the buildings near the South.”
And if you’re less interested in creating very authentic, historical experiences, there’s plenty of room for more chaotic and unorthodox mods.
“What you can do for new modes is very important. So pretty much anything you can think of, you can build. We’ve got some really cool insider ideas. about what that might look like. We’ve been thinking about how we’ve done, you know, fighting royalty with just tanks.”
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“If you want to give some personality to some units, make them more aggressive or more passive, you can absolutely do that. You can ask the units to do some patrols. certain inspections or stay in certain areas or stay away from certain areas.”
To make all this user-generated mayhem easier to find, Company of Heroes 3 will have Steam Workshop integration ready to go as soon as we hit the beaches.
