Denmark
@Sturmtigercobra can you do me a favor and see if you can dig up any other information concerning the planned Company of Heroes Italian front expansion?
The making of Company of Heroes: prototypes, design and the 'Donkeyschreck', October 2016
https://www.pcgamer.com/the-making-of-company-of-heroes-design-prototypes-and-the-donkeyschreck/
*SNIP*
PCG: We've also seen some early concept art for an Italy expansion that never came to pass, what's the story there?
QD: That came down to a decision to do another campaign or Company of Heroes Online. So that was that point.
Ian: Yeah so we had two initiatives at the team level. We needed to pick a lane at that point and there was so much momentum building around the buzz of free-to-play in the East and it moving West and trying to be the first AAA title to make the successful conversion, so we parked Italy for the interim and focused on China and eventually Korea, and finally we came back to North America but yeah, that’s the story behind Italy.
The Making Of Company Of Heroes, September 2016
https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2016/09/22/making-of-company-of-heroes/
*SNIP*
It wasn’t until preparing for this interview that I realised a third expansion had also been in the works, after Opposing Fronts and Tales of Valor. It would have been set around Italy, shining a spotlight on a less explored side of the war. Unfortunately, it was never finished. It was pitted against Relic’s other project, Company of Heroes Online in a sort of Highlander-style duel, and it lost. Company of Heroes Online was eventually cancelled as well.
“It was in early development, and right about that time the free-to-play buzzword started to gain momentum,” Wilson says. “So we started up Company of Heroes Online internally as well. So we had these two parallel competing priorities within the franchise, and at one point we made a decision that for the sake of quality and sanity we needed to pick a lane and go for it, and we ended up shelving the Italy stuff and pushing ahead with Company of Heroes Online.”
That may have not been the end of an Italy expansion, however. At the very least, Duffy continues to see it as fertile ground.
“I think it’s often viewed as a bit of a sideshow. Churchill said it was the soft underbelly and proved to be nothing but an incredible slog of challenge. Personally it’s really interesting because the Canadian army played such a big role in Italy. You don’t hear as much about it. The Normandy campaign took the attention away. So there’s a whole area in there that’s little covered. There are lots of spots in the war where important things happened but don’t get attention.“
IN SOVIET RUSSIA, DEVELOPER INTERVIEWS YOU, May 2012
https://www.gamewatcher.com/interviews/company-of-heroes-2-interview/11290
Strategy Informer: Interesting that you put a lot of emphasis on the Eastern Front being the ‘lost’ front, as I’d argue there are other ones that are more ‘lost’ – from Dunkirk and Africa to even the Italy campaign. Did they not draw you as much as Russia’s struggle?
Quinn Duffy: I think part of it is the scale and the scope we were interested in. Africa kind of ends in 1942, so you don’t really get the full run of World War 2 and the technology changes (ED: Also of note, the Italian Campaign was solely in 1943). I mean I find all the history fascinating, but when we talk about the ‘forgotten’ front it’s mainly for a western or North American audience who don’t have the expose. They don’t take History like you guys do in school, so for them it is really a mystery, and all they know about WW2 is what they’ve seen in Saving Private Ryan or Band of Brothers for instance.
I mean our audience tends to be more engaged in the historical elements, and our fans are calling for the Eastern Front. It was the number one choice for expansion packs. We just couldn’t do it justice, we couldn’t get it to a point where we had the technology to do it right. We wanted to go big with the sequel… but we’ve got a brand new creative vision for the game that can encompass anywhere and anytime.
WE CHAT TO RELIC ABOUT COMPANY OF HEROES 2'S BRITISH FORCES, July 2015
https://www.gamewatcher.com/interviews/company-of-heroes-2-the-british-forces-interview/12276
GameWatcher: With these WW2 strategy games we’re fairly familiar with the main armies, the Americans, British, Germans and so on, but they often don’t explore the wider war. Like, the British had Indian troopers, soldiers from across the Commonwealth fighting for them. Is that something you’d like to explore in the future, a more global cast?
Quinn Duffy: I think we’re primarily focused on the European front, but we’ve stated on a number of occasions that we like the idea of this game as a kind of WW2 platform, we’re invested heavily in mod tools and that kind of thing. So we’re continuing to roll out new abilities to mod the game, and I think at some point having a group of players or a clan take up those challenges, of modding in a far Eastern army, or the Italians, that kind of thing, that’s something we’d be excited to support.
GameWatcher: You released the singleplayer-focused Ardennes expansion late last year, which was a great way to expand the game for SP fans and give them a chance to play with the American faction. Is that something you’re looking to continue, perhaps with the new British army?
Quinn Duffy: I think it’s a little bit dependant on what the market dictates, if there’s interest we’ll pursue it. I think at this point we’re going to support the mod tools and those kinds of initiatives, and we’ll see what players are interested in.
Relic talked about new modding tools in the last CoH2 roadmap (2015/2016). I guess they decided to focus on other projects and/or include in future games.
https://community.companyofheroes.com/discussion/243407/coh2-the-road-ahead
New Content (UGC)
Although we plan to continue releasing new in-game content in future updates, we will now be leveraging UGC such as vehicle skins and maps to help offer new gameplay experiences to the community. We hope that advances to COH2’s modding tools will also take place in the coming months, allowing additional forms of content to be created by the community as well - however this is still to be confirmed.
The modding potential of CoH1 can be seen with this functional walker:
https://www.moddb.com/mods/starwars-frontlinesthe-galactic-civil-war
Star Wars comes to Company of Heroes thanks to this great total conversion mod, MARCH 2018
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/star-wars-comes-to-company-of-heroes-thanks-to-this-great-total-conversion-mod/
Star Wars, Meet Company Of Heroes
https://kotaku.com/star-wars-meet-company-of-heroes-1821202253
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