Other intriguing new elements (from both a strategic and technological standpoint) were things like improved AI, which is programmed to have the same tactical “thoughts” that a reasoning player might devise, and abandoned vehicles: when a tank’s crew dies, but the tank itself is intact, any player can capture and commandeer the vehicle to include it in their forces. This dynamic, ever-changing visibility makes the player feel equal parts empowered and claustrophobic: you can easily set up a bait-and-switch with smoke grenades alone, but cowering in a dark corner will be one of the most paranoia-inducing feelings in RTS history. For instance, if your soldiers’ vision gets obstructed by black smoke rising from the wreckage of a downed tank, you literally won’t see past it.

Not so in CoH2: here, the environment and unit line-of-sight determines what you can or can’t see during battle. In typical RTS games, your vision as a player-commander was a general, circular area around any of the units you control. Listen up, RTS buffs: the game’s most significant new feature is called TrueSight, which could change the way “fog of war” works forever. The minute details aren’t limited to your forces, either: the snowy environment we saw had a frigid authenticity to it, as soldiers chilled and huddled up in the harsh cold. Relic’s new Essence 3 engine renders every last detail on your units – you’ll see individual digits on the soldiers’ gloved hands, and you can almost feel the scruffy textures of their ushankas. Though we had high expectations for the game’s visuals (given the original’s graphical pedigree), we were still stunned by how amazing the game looks, by RTS standards or otherwise. Like the original, CoH2 has you commanding groups of troops instead of singular soldiers – though each unit feels like it’s comprised of individuals, thanks to the attention to detail in their textures and voiceovers.

History buffs may know that 17 of the 20 all-time bloodiest battles took place on the Eastern front offensives like the Battle of Berlin and Operation Barbarossa will be part of the campaign, so the brutality factor is even higher for these desperate and grueling skirmishes. Company of Heroes 2’s real-time battles still take place during WWII while the original CoH focused on the well-known Western front, CoH2 takes things to the Eastern front in war-ravaged European territories, where the USSR Red Army forces struggled to keep German soldiers at bay.

Company of heroes tanks