Company of Heroes 2
Relic Entertainment · Strategy, Simulation
Overview
Experience the ultimate WWII RTS platform with COH2 and its standalone expansions. This package includes the base game, which you can then upgrade by purchasing The Western Front Armies, Ardennes Assault and/or The British Forces. More info in the "About This Game" section below.
THE GAMEQ VERDICT9,842 reviews analyzed
What players are actually saying
1. Summary
Players treat Company of Heroes 2 as a standing classic of World War 2 strategy. Their praise is about how fights play out: squads live or die by cover, flanking and timing, battles sound and look like a war, and matches with friends against the AI turn into long, loud brawls. Company of Heroes 3 comes up often, and the reviewers who compare the two side with this game almost without exception. Veterans keep the game fresh with mods and the Steam Workshop, and some say the vanilla game is at its best only with them.
How the game is sold is the most frequent frustration. Only two of five factions come with the base game, many commanders sit behind purchases or a slow currency grind, and the menus keep advertising more. It comes up in 18.5% of the longer reviews, and some fans who raise it advise buying the extras in a bundle on sale. Other complaints cover technical trouble (black screens on high refresh rate monitors, crashes, disconnects with no way back in), leavers and abuse in multiplayer, AI that wins on harder settings by cheating rather than thinking, and controls that cannot be rebound. Opinion is divided on the campaigns, on faction balance and on whether this sequel lives up to the first Company of Heroes. Most reviews still recommend it, and some add the advice to buy it cheap and play it with friends.
2. What keeps coming up
What players praise
Still the one to play over Company of Heroes 3High
14.6% of the longer reviews bring up Company of Heroes 3, and the comparison runs one way. Across all game-focused reviews, 269 say this game is the better one and only a couple argue the reverse. Some reviewers tried the sequel and came back, describing this one as more complete, grittier, better sounding and cheaper: "It took CoH 3 to make me realise how much I love this game." A few say they rewrote an old negative review after playing the sequel. Separately, a handful blame a rise in crashes on the period when the sequel launched.
Best with friends and against the AIHigh
A recurring picture is a group of two to four players holding chokepoints against expert AI for an hour or more, shouting at each other. 13.6% of the longer reviews talk about friends, co-op or family, and some keep it short: "Great game to force my friends into." Several reviewers say the online scene is the reason to stay in that circle: "Do not buy this game if you don't have at least one friend that you can play with." People who never touch ranked play name co-op Theater of War missions and custom AI skirmishes on Workshop maps as what keeps them playing.
Atmosphere, sound and spectacleHigh
Artillery and rocket sounds, buildings collapsing, tanks deflecting shots and the profane, situational unit voice lines (often quoted) are what players single out in the 13.0% of longer reviews that praise the atmosphere, sound, explosions or visuals. "The sound of artillery, tanks rolling through the battlefield, and infantry fighting from ruined buildings makes every match feel like an actual battle rather than a typical RTS skirmish." Several say the game still looks good for its age. A few reviewers who prefer the first game call this one more cartoonish and its HUD cluttered.
Tactical combat built on cover and positioningHigh
12.6% of the longer reviews describe the tactical layer: cover, line of sight, suppression, flanking, veterancy and knowing when to retreat. Fans like that there is little economy to manage and that a well placed gun or a flank beats a bigger army. "Positioning matters, cover matters, suppression matters, and every decision you make on the battlefield can completely change the outcome of a fight." The same depth is what some newcomers bounce off, since one missed grenade or a moment looking elsewhere can wipe a veteran squad.
Mods and the WorkshopHigh
10.6% of the longer reviews mention mods or the Workshop. Players name Wikinger, Spearhead, Advanced Powers, all-units and population cap mods, along with a large library of community maps. "The modding community makes up for what the vanilla game lacks." A few long-time players say they only play modded now and call vanilla too arcade-like. The limits get noted too: mods cannot add new unit models, they cannot be used in the campaigns, and heavy mods can cause lag or crashes.
Where players are split
The campaignsHigh
The campaigns or story come up in 21.5% of the longer reviews, with no agreement. Fans of the Soviet campaign praise its varied missions, winter set pieces and mood: "The campaign is gothic, dark and depressing as it should be, it gets the atmosphere of the eastern front spot on." Critics find it short, linear and heavily scripted, with missions that force one solution and difficulty spikes on Normal, and some put it bluntly: "The campaign is bad (both in terms of writing and gameplay)". The Ardennes Assault expansion splits players the same way. Some love its company-based map: "And it immediately made me forget about CoH1." Others are put off by attrition that carries between missions and by having to restart the whole campaign to replay one mission: "You cannot replay missions at your leisure."
Living up to the first Company of HeroesHigh
Comparisons with the original appear in 13.3% of the longer reviews, and here the sequel fares worse than against Company of Heroes 3. Across all game-focused reviews, 111 say the first game is better and 36 say this one improves on it. The first group misses the original's campaigns, doctrine trees, four free factions and modding freedom, and some call this one a "Huge step back from the first game." The second group points to reversing vehicles, cover vaulting, line of sight and the larger faction roster: "Much better than COH 1 and in my opinion better than COH 3."
Faction balanceHigh
11.8% of the longer reviews talk about balance. Phrasing that calls the game unbalanced outnumbers phrasing that calls it well balanced by more than two to one (103 reviews to 42), but the complainers disagree on who is favored. Complaints that the Axis factions have the better tanks, machine guns and artillery, especially in 3v3 and 4v4, sit beside complaints that British or Soviet units are the problem. One veteran put it this way: "The game is balanced around 1v1 and absolutely does not scale to team games, yet that's where the majority of the community is." Others accept the asymmetry as part of the fun, and one short review captures the mood: "Every faction is op except my own which is underpowered".
Learning curveMedium
4.9% of the longer reviews talk about the learning curve, tutorials or getting started. Several say the tutorial explains little and that newcomers should play the campaign and AI skirmishes before going online. "You will probably lose a lot before you understand why you lost." Some found it surprisingly approachable for a first RTS, while others gave up within a few missions because there was too much to track at once.
Randomness in fightsMedium
RNG, luck or randomness come up in 4.1% of the longer reviews. Some enjoy the unpredictable swings and the stories they produce. Others say a single grenade, mortar shell or bounced tank shot decides too many matches for a game that presents itself as competitive. "Imagine an RTS that has RNG as a mechanic, its pretty fun... if youre lucky."
Winter and weather mechanicsLow
2.3% of the longer reviews mention blizzards, freezing troops or breaking ice. Some like how it changes play: "Blizzards on winter maps are interesting temporary change of conditions, forcing you to change how you play for its duration." Others found it a chore, and one player who never got into the game wrote that "The weather mechanics were not fun to deal with".
What frustrates players
Paywalled factions, commanders and a constant storefrontHigh
18.5% of the longer reviews raise DLC, paywalls or microtransactions, most of them to complain. Reviewers note that the base game includes only the Soviets and the Wehrmacht, while the US, British and Oberkommando West factions, the Ardennes campaign, Theater of War packs and most commanders cost extra. "Yes, you might have purchased the game, but did you purchase the content?" A few Ardennes Assault owners object that one of its four companies, the Fox Company Rangers, is sold separately, and one adds that the expansion doesn't unlock its armies for skirmish or multiplayer: "Even the DLC has DLC." Earning commanders through drops is described as unrealistic, since "some of them are 15000 supply points and you normally can only get 500 from a crate drop." Some of the reviewers who raise it advise buying the DLC or a complete bundle on a deep sale.
Startup failures, crashes and disconnectsMedium
7.7% of the longer reviews report technical problems, and reports run into 2026. The most specific is the game freezing on the title screen or showing a black screen on high refresh rate monitors, which players fix with a "-refresh 60" or "-refresh 120" launch option: "Stuck on the title page with a higher refresh rate monitor." Others describe Bugsplat crashes, menu stutter, poor frame rates on modern hardware, desyncs and online services that block offline skirmish. There is no reconnect, so a disconnect ends a long match for good: "If only my homies can rejoin back in the game when they get disconnected". One player joked that "Ladder ranking is temporary, bugsplat is eternal."
Leavers, abuse and lopsided matchmakingMedium
6.5% of the longer reviews complain about the online community or matchmaking. They describe teammates who quit after losing a squad with no penalty, abusive chat with no mute or in-game report, team killing, and matchmaking that pits newcomers against premade teams with thousands of hours. "This game badly needs a leaver buster." A player who mostly plays alongside a friend advises: "Find a friend tho, people take this way too serious and will flame them for the smallest mistake." A few reviewers say the long-time community is friendly once you find regulars.
No key rebinding, tight camera and a cluttered interfaceMedium
4.6% of the longer reviews criticize the controls or interface. Players cannot rebind keys or move the camera with WASD without third-party scripts, and the camera zoom is close to the ground. "I actually really like this game but not having an option to rebind keys in an RTS game is insane". Another: "And the camera can't zoom out more than 5 inches from the ground." Others call the HUD busy and say jittering unit icons make it easy to select the wrong squad.
AI that cheats and vehicles that path badlyMedium
4.1% of the longer reviews complain about the AI or unit pathing. On Hard and Expert, players say the enemy gets extra resources and sees through fog of war rather than playing smarter: "The AI tactics are the same for all difficulties, the only thing that changes is cheats for them". Allied AI is described as passive or in the way. Vehicle pathfinding is a separate sore point, with tanks turning their rear armor to the enemy when told to reverse or getting stuck on each other: "Tank path finding is so bad, its a meme now!"
Unobtainable achievementsLow
1.8% of the longer reviews mention achievements, mostly completionists who found several can no longer be earned. "3 Achievements are locked to an event from 2015 making it Impossible to 100% the game."
Mac and Linux players walled offLow
1.5% of the longer reviews mention Mac, Linux or Steam Deck. Native Mac and Linux versions cannot play online with Windows players, and Mac players report crashes: "Mac users cannot play with windows players". Linux users suggest running the Windows version through Proton instead.
Unkillable tanks and lost saves in the campaignsLow
1.0% of the longer reviews describe enemy vehicles that cannot be destroyed, mostly in Ardennes Assault, and others report saves that vanish or will not load. "Some enemy units are literally unkillable".
Map hackers in ranked playLow
Accusations of map hacks or drop hacks appear in 1.0% of the longer reviews, mostly from players with long multiplayer histories. "Half of the playerbase has maphack and you can't do anything about it."
No servers near Asia and OceaniaLow
0.9% of the longer reviews ask for servers outside North America and Europe, describing high ping and dropped connections: "please make server in asia, i have big trouble with the connection lost."
Ads in the menu and an uninstall surveyLow
A small group complains that the main menu advertises DLC and Company of Heroes 3, and that uninstalling opens a survey in the browser: "opens surveymonkey website on uninstalling".
3. The player conversation
Most reviews are short endorsements ("best WW2 RTS", "better than CoH3"). Some of the long ones praise the core game and then turn to what surrounds it: the store, the bugs and the online scene. A few long-time players call it a love-hate relationship, recommending the game while saying it makes them furious.
Startup failures come mostly from people with only a few hours on record, and key rebinding and camera complaints also lean toward newer players. Balance, leaver, toxicity and cheater complaints come from veterans with hundreds or thousands of hours, the people who still play ranked team games. DLC complaints come from both groups. Reviews about co-op and single-player play against the AI lean toward praise, often with mods in the mix.
Reviews written in 2022 and 2023 ran about 86% positive, and those written in 2025 and 2026 about 81 to 82%. Company of Heroes 3 changed the conversation: reviews written since its release often hold this game up as the better one, and a few players say they turned an old negative review positive after trying the sequel.
4. What the developers could do
- Fold the factions and commanders into one fairly priced package. Paywalled factions, commanders and the in-menu store are the most common complaint in the longer reviews.
- Fix launching on high refresh rate monitors and the Bugsplat crashes. New players hit black screens and title-screen freezes that need a hidden launch option, and some veterans lose matches to crashes and memory leaks.
- Add reconnect, leaver penalties and in-game mute and report. Players describe losing team games to disconnects they cannot rejoin, teammates who quit early and abusive chat they cannot silence.
- Allow key rebinding, WASD camera control and a wider zoom. Players call these basic features for an RTS, and newer players raise their absence most.
- Make Hard and Expert AI smarter instead of richer, and fix vehicle pathing. Players say the AI wins through extra resources and map vision, and tanks that turn their backs when reversing cost them fights.
- Rebalance the large team modes. Balance complaints concentrate on 3v3 and 4v4, where players say tuning done for 1v1 does not hold.
- Repair Ardennes Assault's unkillable vehicles and the dead achievements, and add mid-mission saves. These bugs stop some players from finishing paid campaigns and completing the game.
- Add map-hack detection and connect Mac, Linux and Windows lobbies. Ranked veterans describe unchecked hacks, and Mac and Linux owners cannot play with most of the player base.
