Company Of Heroes 2 Story Trailer Proves War Is Hell

[Earnest Cavalli]

Company Of Heroes 2 Story Trailer Proves War Is Hell


Who could've guessed that World War II was terrifying and horrible?

Pardon the flippancy, but anyone who spends as much time around videogames as I do is liable to get a really skewed view of how war plays out. In the virtual world, people respawn and death is a momentary inconvenience. In reality though, war is horrific. Mankind's genius for inventing new ways to kill people is matched only by its bloodlust. The human mind is simply incapable of comprehending the level of suffering in a massive conflict like World War II, so most media portraying the War glosses over the reality of the War to instead focus on more simple, heroic stories, that won't drive the viewer/reader/player to hang themselves in the nearest crawlspace.

What a downer preface, huh? There's a point here, I promise. This morning, Sega and developer Relic Entertainment issued a new trailer for the upcoming strategy title Company of Heroes 2, which is best described as "unrelentingly grim." At one point a soldier is executed via makeshift firing squad in the shadow of a statue depicting carefree children playing. There's nothing heroic or pleasant about this image; it's simply a surprisingly realistic depiction of how terrible war can be.

Whether Company of Heroes 2 will be as dark as this trailer suggests when it hits PCs on June 25 remains to be seen, but for the moment I have to say that I'm impressed with the direction Relic seems to be taking this title. If nothing else it serves as an important counterpoint to all those violent shooters that depict human life as disposable and inconsequential. I'd hate to see all games go in this direction, but it's nice to see at least one developer willing to paint World War II as a terrible, bloody moment in mankind's history that should never be repeated.

Which is an ironic message for a game you can fire up and replay as often as you'd like.

Source: YouTube [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDJFGeyIACM]

Permalink

 

[Commissar Sae]

Damn, well that was grim. As a historian who spent a lot of time looking into WWII I am actually happy to see the brutality and savagery of the war starting to be shown. There is a philosopher who fought in WWI, name of Grey I believe, who said the truest line about war i have ever read. I am paraphrasing as I have never been able to find the exact quote again but: "War brings out both the best and the worst of humanity. It brings out bravery, courage and fraternity, but it also calls up brutality, savagery and hatred."

 

[Spoonius]

Lol, the Arab advisor from Medieval 2: Total War...

Story looks good, potentially great even.

 

[Kargathia]

...to all those violent shooters that depict human life as disposable and inconsequential.

No worries, we'll just replace it with a violent RTS where you are cheerfully sacrificing waves of your own soldiers to capture an objective.

 

[1337mokro]

...to all those violent shooters that depict human life as disposable and inconsequential.

No worries, we'll just replace it with a violent RTS where you are cheerfully sacrificing waves of your own soldiers to capture an objective.

Now you are talking like a proper gentleman! We don't get a decent thrill unless we amplify the needless sacrifice of lives by at least a hundred! That's why we the League of Armchair Generals approve of the brutal depiction of WW2 in this interactive video-experience.

 

[Fulbert]

That is terrible, what a bunch of brutal monsters those Russians are, killing surrendered soldiers and women. What a great shame the US supported them during the war, and not the real Europeans.

 

[blackrave]

That is terrible, what a bunch of brutal monsters those Russians are, killing surrendered soldiers and women. What a great shame the US supported them during the war, and not the real Europeans.

Oh boy, here we go again :/
There is so much wrong with your comment, but I will try to explain all these things as best as I can.
1."brutal monsters"? Every human has a brutal monster in them. And majority of soldiers will do horrible things to survive, to follow orders and to defeat enemy. This "brutal monster" is called survival instinct.
2."surrendered soldiers and women"? More often they are liability that can result in defeat. Would you rather ignore your orders and escort captives back, with a price of failing your brothers in arms, and being sent to tribunal with high chances of being executed. Or you will execute enemy soldiers (it doesn't matter what genitals they have- at war they all are enemy soldiers) and continue with your task?
3."real europeans"? Who? Nazis?

From the comfort and safety of your chair you may think that you would do the "right thing", but you wouldn't
Wartime logic is a cold heartless *****, who doesn't care about right and wrong, only thing that matters is to defeat enemy with as little loss as possible, and it will force you into doing things you will later remember while sobbing like a little child.

 

[Fulbert]

That is terrible, what a bunch of brutal monsters those Russians are, killing surrendered soldiers and women. What a great shame the US supported them during the war, and not the real Europeans.

From the comfort and safety of your chair you may think that you would do the "right thing", but you wouldn't
Wartime logic is a cold heartless *****, who doesn't care about right and wrong, only thing that matters is to defeat enemy with as little loss as possible, and it will force you into doing things you will later remember while sobbing like a little child.

From the comfort and safety of your chair you may think that you would do the "right thing", but you wouldn't
Wartime logic is a cold heartless *****, who doesn't care about right and wrong, only thing that matters is to defeat enemy with as little loss as possible, and it will force you into doing things you will later remember while sobbing like a little child.[/quote]

I don?t think so, I?m afraid. You see, chances are both you and me are civilized Westerners who will hardly ever get into a situation when only thing that matters is to defeat enemy with as little loss as possible. And even if we do end up in the military, even if we are sent to a warzone to wage war, we will do so in a civilized humane manner, using kill-drones and precision weapons from the safety of an airfield several hundred miles away, while listening to some lovely gangsta rap and heavy metal or some other ?predator music?

Spoiler

(there?s actually a nice article that overviews the sort of music modern American soldiers listen to while getting ?crunked? and ?amped up? for action. It?s called ?Pump Up the Volume? and can be found in Winter 2012 issue of MHQ)

. What we have achieved in today?s world is we managed to humanize war through technology. We have managed to take this ?survival instinct? out of equation which allows us to make the right thing and eliminate the enemy in an efficient, level-headed cold-blooded manner.

And the Russians? Well, they still conscript people, and 18-year-old kids, at that! What would you expect from such soldiers when they encounter enemy other than pillaging, rape and indiscriminate murder? And you can?t really blame them since the communist traditions, like calling each other comrades and redistributing of newly drafted soldiers? property between their older brothers-in-arms, are still very much alive in the modern Russian Army.
And we are supposed to fight as, and root for, this savage collectivist horde of barbarians? Excuse me for saying such an inflammatory thing, but I?d rather go with the Germans!

Spoiler

actually, some of the Russian dissidents did ? search general Vlasov?s story

Mind you, I don?t say Nazis because hardly anyone in Germany was a Nazi. The country was controlled by a tiny bunch of psychos with crazy Nietzschean ideas, but that doesn?t mean every German was like that. Those who fought in the Eastern front were mostly anti-communists who wanted to protect the Western world from the Red blight. If only we could sign a peace treaty with Germany, if only we could unite our effort in eliminating the Soviet Union and freeing all the peoples that were oppressed by it. We could then stage a coup in Germany and install a democratic government and turn the German Reich into a pan-European superstate with cooperation and Human Rights and everything ? we could?ve achieved the European Union by 50?s! Heck, we could?ve finally integrated Russia into the European culture! It would?ve been a boon for all!

And yet we decided to support the Russkies. Hence the Cold War, Russians in space, communist Cuba, you name it.
Nice job breaking the world, hero?:-\

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

That is terrible, what a bunch of brutal monsters those Russians are, killing surrendered soldiers and women. What a great shame the US supported them during the war, and not the real Europeans.

Which 'real' Europeans? because at the point Operation Barbarossa kicked off the only other major European power that wasn't a ally or occupied by Nazi Germany was the United Kingdom.

Yes Stalin was a complete bastard, but Hitler was also a complete bastard as well and had just taken out a major player called France. At that point even Winston Churchill stated:

"If Hitler invaded Hell, I would make at least a favourable reference to the devil in the House of Commons."

 

[Zhukov]

*click*

*click*

*click-click*

*click*

Oh, the humanity!

 

[Carnagath]

...to all those violent shooters that depict human life as disposable and inconsequential.

No worries, we'll just replace it with a violent RTS where you are cheerfully sacrificing waves of your own soldiers to capture an objective.

Now you are talking like a proper gentleman! We don't get a decent thrill unless we amplify the needless sacrifice of lives by at least a hundred! That's why we the League of Armchair Generals approve of the brutal depiction of WW2 in this interactive video-experience.

*click*

*click*

*click-click*

*click*

Oh, the humanity!

TIL that we are not allowed to experience any meaningful stories in games, because they are games. "Edgy" cynicism, from 15 year olds, for 15 year olds. Escapist forums in a nutshell.

 

[blackrave]

I don?t think so, I?m afraid. You see, chances are both you and me are civilized Westerners who will hardly ever get into a situation when only thing that matters is to defeat enemy with as little loss as possible. And even if we do end up in the military, even if we are sent to a warzone to wage war, we will do so in a civilized humane manner, using kill-drones and precision weapons from the safety of an airfield several hundred miles away, while listening to some lovely gangsta rap and heavy metal or some other ?predator music?

Spoiler

(there?s actually a nice article that overviews the sort of music modern American soldiers listen to while getting ?crunked? and ?amped up? for action. It?s called ?Pump Up the Volume? and can be found in Winter 2012 issue of MHQ)

. What we have achieved in today?s world is we managed to humanize war through technology. We have managed to take this ?survival instinct? out of equation which allows us to make the right thing and eliminate the enemy in an efficient, level-headed cold-blooded manner.

And the Russians? Well, they still conscript people, and 18-year-old kids, at that! What would you expect from such soldiers when they encounter enemy other than pillaging, rape and indiscriminate murder? And you can?t really blame them since the communist traditions, like calling each other comrades and redistributing of newly drafted soldiers? property between their older brothers-in-arms, are still very much alive in the modern Russian Army.
And we are supposed to fight as, and root for, this savage collectivist horde of barbarians? Excuse me for saying such an inflammatory thing, but I?d rather go with the Germans!

Spoiler

actually, some of the Russian dissidents did ? search general Vlasov?s story

Mind you, I don?t say Nazis because hardly anyone in Germany was a Nazi. The country was controlled by a tiny bunch of psychos with crazy Nietzschean ideas, but that doesn?t mean every German was like that. Those who fought in the Eastern front were mostly anti-communists who wanted to protect the Western world from the Red blight. If only we could sign a peace treaty with Germany, if only we could unite our effort in eliminating the Soviet Union and freeing all the peoples that were oppressed by it. We could then stage a coup in Germany and install a democratic government and turn the German Reich into a pan-European superstate with cooperation and Human Rights and everything ? we could?ve achieved the European Union by 50?s! Heck, we could?ve finally integrated Russia into the European culture! It would?ve been a boon for all!

And yet we decided to support the Russkies. Hence the Cold War, Russians in space, communist Cuba, you name it.
Nice job breaking the world, hero?:-\

I'm not sure whether you are a troll or you have been raised on C&C:Red Alert and bad 90s B-category action movies.
For a sake of argument let's assume it's the later.

1a.Context- the game and our argument is about WW2, not modern conflicts, so no widespread automatic infantry weapons, no drones and no rap music (shocking, I know).
1b.And even if we would get into major/global military conflict- nobody cancelled military crimes that makes sense strategy-wise. For example wiping out village/city that supports your enemy with food, medicine, shelter for spies/partisans and occasionally with fresh recruits. Humanity aside, it makes sense to kill them all, doesn't it? Leave children alive? In 5-15years they will become your enemies. It is a liability one cannot afford during war. It's easier to wipe them all and then let mass media find excuses and cover things up neatly. And who cares that those who participated in this "spring cleaning" will commit suicide in 5-40years? And who those will be? Soldiers who were mowing down defenseless civilians and drone operators who supported them. See? It is really easy to excuse horrible acts of crime when you think of them in larger perspective. I don't know about you, but that scares the crap out of me. So don't kid yourself- there is no such thing as "civilized humane war"

2a.If you refer to russian dedovschina practice, then I must disagree with you. While there are minority of russians who considers it as some sort of tradition, majority hates it alongside political corruption and widespread bribing. It is just a matter of time and reforms, eventually things will get better.
2b.If these "savage collectivist horde of barbarians" are enemies of our enemies, then yes. Gooooooo Horde!!!
2c.When it comes to dissidents this is "enemy of my enemy" situation again.

3.Well, actually there was a coup to overthrown Nazis. It was/is called World War 2. Yeah, it was best thing that global superpowers could do at the time. So no "what-if"s.

Now to your examples of "wrongdoings" of Russian communists
Cold War- had mostly economical reasons, due to unwillingness of USSR to accept US dollar as unified global currency. And when you take into consideration that USD is glorified toilet paper, emitted by a group of highly questionable people with very little control, then who can really blame communists?
Russians in space- how is it bad, again?
Communist Cuba- that was mostly of the fuck up of US themselves. That's what happens when you are being dick to someone on their own soil. Sometimes they do get pissed.
Another examples?
I can name 2
Prague Spring- a fuck up. There is no excuse for what happened there. None at all. Sometime shit DO happen.
Afghanistan- basically reversed Vietcong. I personally blame afganees for bringing big players into the small home conflict. It would have ended sooner without USSR and USA intervention.

*click*

*click*

*click-click*

*click*

Oh, the humanity!

Yeah, we're pretty much fucked, aren't we?

 

[Zhukov]

*click*

*click*

*click-click*

*click*

Oh, the humanity!

TIL that we are not allowed to experience any meaningful stories in games, because they are games. "Edgy" cynicism, from 15 year olds, for 15 year olds. Escapist forums in a nutshell.

a) What does TIL stand for?

b) I am 25, not 15. Admittedly, this does not necessarily make me any more wise or mature than the average 15 year old. Also, if 15 year olds enjoy my comments then that's totally okay with me.

c) I was not attempting to be "edgy" or cynical. I was being jocular. If you were not amused then I am very sorry. I shall try to do better in the future.

d) You are being silly. You are jumping to false conclusions and being insulting and abrasive based on those conclusions. I deem this conduct to be not cool.

e) My point was not "we are not allowed to experience any meaningful stories in games, because they are games." In fact, that is pretty much the exact opposite of what I think. Rather, my point was that a RTS game in which you churn out masses of faceless, identical little soldiers then watch them fight from a distant birds-eye view is a poor fit for a "oh, the humanity story". Trying to make me feel for the plight of my little puppets isn't going to work because, unlike in a real war, they really are just disposable assets and every other aspect of the game treats them as such.