How RTS Company of Heroes 3 Is Handling the All-Important Issue of Controls on PS5

Execution is everything

by Khayl Adam Wed 17th May 2023

The Company of Heroes franchise is one of PC's most storied real-time strategy series, with even the first game (released in 2006) still supporting a competitive community today. Company of Heroes 3 will mark the first time the series has made the jump to console, and as is always the case with strategy games, it will live or die by how well it handles on a controller.

Thankfully, as shown in a new dev diary, the team over at Relic know this and has been hard at work on a control scheme that will allow commanders to bring order to the chaos of the battlefield. Through the use of the game's Tactical Pause feature, players will be given a moment's reprieve to think things through before issuing orders (at least in a single-player). It looks like a great addition, combined with mapping command wheels to both triggers, although the only way to know for sure is to try it for ourselves.

Company of Heroes 3 launches on PS5 on 30th May. Will you be diving in? What strategy games do you think actually control well on a console? Write a detailed response with your DualSense in the comments section below.

[source youtu.be]

Khayl Adam is Push Square's roving Australian correspondent, a reporter tasked with scouring the internet for the richest, most succulent PlayStation stories. With five years of experience as a freelance journalist and mercenary wordsmith, RPGs are his first great love, but strategy and tactics games are a close second, genres in which he is only too happy to specialize.

1
Scatter
Wed 17th May 2023

That was a great interview and the care with which they made this game is evident. I'm leery about RTS on console, but so were the devs. They totally get it. I'm in.

2
Khayl
Wed 17th May 2023

@Scatter My feelings exactly, cautiously optimistic!

3
Otherbarry
Wed 17th May 2023

If fps games on console are allowing mouse and keyboard wouldn't it just make sense to just support M/K for these games.

4
Elodin
Wed 17th May 2023

I was buying, but watching a few runs of Age of Wonders 4 has me picking that up soon instead. Will get late this year though

5
Mikey856
Wed 17th May 2023

Down for this definitely. Has anyone seen War Mongrels coming soon on PS5. THAT looks sick tbh

6
Fyz306903
Wed 17th May 2023

Is this game a 'build stuff to generate units' RTS game or a 'complete primary/secondary/hidden objectives to get reinforcements' RTS game?

7
Oriion
Wed 17th May 2023

@Fyz306903 there are base buildings you build to generate units, the units are very sophisticated though with multiple abilities each and you cannot create unit blobs like StarCraft. Having 3 tanks at once for instance is basically a gg steamroll. I am already playing this on pc and pre ordered for PS5. Very pumped for release!

8
Fyz306903
Wed 17th May 2023

@Oriion OK. To be honest I don't really like base building in RTS games outside of Age of Empires. I much prefer getting set reinforcements. But that's just me.

9
Oriion
Wed 17th May 2023

@Fyz306903 there are no “resource gathering” units though like age of empires. It’s passive based on map control. Capturing an Oil depot for instance supplies you with fuel and denies it to your enemy. Depending on your faction, there are reinforcements that can be called in from off map instantly. Units that come from base buildings have a build time.