Hot new Company of Heroes 2 video interview talks about the cold graphics

Written by Matt Swider on July 28, 2012

Company of Heroes 2 News: A YouTube video for Company of Heroes 2, the WWII game set on the Eastern Front, showcases what the new ColdTech system is all about.

A new Company of Heroes 2 video interview from VG24/7 talks about the game's ColdTech system, which is a part of developer Relic Entertainment's new Essence Engine 3.0 and powers the tundra-like battles that took place on the Eastern Front in WWII. The conditions sound pretty dire, with pervasive cold being as lethal as a German bullet.

?ColdTech deals with blizzard conditions, cold conditions, frozen ice, breaking ice,? rattles off Company of Heroes 2 game director Quinn Duffy. ?Everything that builds on the mythos of the brutal cold of the Eastern Front.?

If you're not careful, the harsh-looking cold weather can have an even harsher impact on your real-time strategy gameplay. Quinn lays it out by saying, ?In deep snow, troops are encumbered by movement through the the deep snow. It increases their travel time, which increases their exposure to the cold. Of course, in the cold weather, they can suffer from hypothermia and the other ill effects of the cold weather. Members of your squad will actually fall out of the column and they can freeze to death.?

Quinn says that these ill-effects will be illustrated to players through their soldier's ambient animations. Sadly, he only mimes the animations for a second - this Company of Heroes YouTube video doesn't show the tourotus animations because there's only a slideshow of screenshots of the wintery-white mess.

We'll get a closer look at Company of Heroes 2 and its ColdTech soon, as the PC strategy game has a lot of preview time between now and its 2013 release date.