Company of Heroes Collection
Image: Feral Interactive

Among the heaps of releases coming our way this year, 2023 has been a pretty big one for Feral Interactive — the team behind the excellent Switch ports of GRID Autosport and Alien: Isolation. The studio brought The Lara Croft Collection our way back in June and is now setting its sights on the next porting project: 2006's WWII real-time strategy classic, Company of Heroes.

This has long been considered one of the standouts of the RTS genre, with some even ranking it among the best releases ever — no pressure then, eh? Fortunately, the odds were already in Feral's favour, having been behind the game's 2020 port to iOS and Android.

The ultimate question is whether the studio will be able to continue producing that porting magic. Is it possible to bring the much-loved title to Switch in a way that feels faithful to the original while also working to the console's strengths?

We were recently invited by Feral to go hands-on with the Company of Heroes Collection and see whether the Switch release could live up to the legacy of the original. Thankfully, after a good two-and-a-half hours of playtime, we can see that Company of Heroes is just as strong as it always has been — even if that does mean newcomers may find it a lot to handle.

Veterans who have played through either the original PC game or its later mobile version will find few surprises here. After speeding through a couple of in-depth tutorials to get us up to speed with the Switch controls (more on that later), we were thrown into the original 'Invasion of Normandy' campaign and set about moving our troops across the body-strewn beaches and towards enemy lines.

Right from the get-go, your choices matter — this is about as far as you can get from Nintendo's take on the genre, most recently seen in Pikmin 4. There is no gentle introduction, little handholding, and we were quickly reminded that one false move would put our troops in a line of fire from which Olimar's whistle couldn't call them back.

But this is what made Company of Heroes such a big hit back in the day. It's brutal, as warfare should be — a fact that became increasingly apparent as we set about moving our squad deeper into enemy territory and attempting to take out heavy-fire weapons with as few casualties as possible. The casualties do come thick and fast, with soldiers' blood and shouts for help hammering home the importance of our every move. This never was a game to be taken lightly, and that is still the case.

This is carried through into later environments, where missions see you setting up base camp in abandoned buildings and sending out infantry to demolish the surrounding cityscape until rubble stacks up in piles around you. If you were concerned whether the original's unwavering sights of the realities of war would be somehow lost on Switch, worry not, they're all still there.

It's a credit to Feral's port that the graphical impact isn't lost to the Switch's comparatively reduced power offerings. Yes, the detail of bodies hitting the ground and blood spatters is less than what you might see on PC (especially in handheld mode), but the effect and atmosphere aren't lessened — even if the game's vintage is clear from its visuals.

This is perhaps clearest in the in-game cutscenes, which remain just as they appeared in the 2006 original. The uncannily roaming eyes and somewhat jilted movement of the soldiers are nowhere near today's standards, but once these polygonal paratroopers are dropped into a warzone, we found ourselves caring all the same. Fortunately, the performance keeps things feeling tight on the field, running at a consistent 30fps in 720p handheld and 1080p docked.

But how does this all play out on Switch, control-wise? After all, this release redeploys the complex keyboard-and-mouse experience to two sticks and a comparatively meagre 12 main buttons across the Joy-Con. Despite all of the game's death and gore in the early hours, the biggest challenge came with getting to grips (literally) with the fresh control scheme.

Company of Heroes on Switch is full of deep tactics, with each troop class possessing their own strengths and skills. This means that while moving your team from point A to B is just as simple as it always has been, there are a fair number of button combinations that you'll need to remember to access specific skill wheels and ensure that your divided group moves and acts the way you want them to.

The tutorials are generally strong in this respect, though once we were launched into the throes of battle, we quickly found that the transition from a quick button press on a keyboard to holding down triggers and navigating menus was not the smoothest. Feral has managed to bring all of the complexity of the original PC title over to this Switch port, but with that comes a rather steep learning curve with the controls. We never expected to finish our playtime feeling like CoH pros, but the fact that the control scheme didn't truly click in our time with it suggests that it will require some significant investment to get comfortable and focused on the game itself.

Fortunately, this is the Company of Heroes Collection, and the amount of content packed into it means that the hours spent getting to grips with the controls will be a drop in the ocean when you consider everything that there is to do.

Feral has put together a rather meaty package here, comprising the original 15 missions from the Invasion of Normandy Campaign with the first game's two expansions — 'Opposing Fronts' and 'Tales of Valor' — and the immediately entertaining Skirmish mode which sees you dropped into a battle and going head-to-head against an AI opponent (we were told that an online co-op patch is planned for the future). All of this adds up to 41 separate missions for around 30 hours of campaign gameplay and room for many more away from the story.

Overall, the Company of Heroes Collection is shaping up to be a rather impressive port for those hungry for some deep strategic action. The gameplay can be punishing at times, the control scheme feels very much condensed on Switch and will take a good amount of time to truly 'master', and its visuals aren't much by today's standards, but this is Company of Heroes, and those who enjoyed the original will find a lot to like in this portable offering. From what we've seen so far, Feral has managed to pack all of the game's complexity, brutality, and strategy into one compact package.

Mission accomplished? We need to see more but our projections suggest a victory, with acceptable losses.

Thanks to Feral for hosting us. Company of Heroes Collection marches onto Switch on October 12th, 2023.

Will you be taking command of this one? Let us know in the comments