Company of Heroes 3: Final Stand

Reading several hundred reviews of Final Stand produces an unusual result: both sides are describing the same game and largely agreeing about it. The positives say the wave defence is fun, relaxing and a welcome break from competitive Company of Heroes. The negatives say the wave defence is fun and should not have cost forty-five dollars.

That's the whole argument. It's why this sits at 50% with 705 reviews while almost nobody claims the game doesn't work.

Twelve waves and four factions

The structure is straightforward. You pick one of four factions, take a map, and hold it through twelve escalating rounds of attacks punctuated by bosses and battlefield events. Between waves you draft from randomised offers of units and abilities that persist for that run. Between runs, you spend progress on faction-specific perk trees that change how each army plays.

The important thing is that the combat underneath is real Company of Heroes — cover, suppression, flanking, combined arms — and it survives the transplant into wave defence better than it has any right to. Digging in, layering defences and reacting as pressure escalates uses the series' systems in a way the competitive ladder never asks for. Several long-time players describe this as the mode they've been building in mods for a decade, finally official, and the enthusiasm in those reviews is genuine rather than dutiful.

It's co-operative for two, and it's forgiving. The recurring phrase in the positive column is some version of "unwind after work": two or three rounds, no ladder anxiety, no meta to chase.

The number everyone is arguing about

Now the price. Final Stand is NZ$44.99, discounted 10% at launch, with a further cut for people who already own Company of Heroes 3. For that you get five maps, four factions, twelve waves and the perk trees.

The most-upvoted negative review — with several hundred votes behind it — makes the argument sympathetically rather than angrily: that Relic, now operating independently and self-publishing, is leaning on the goodwill of existing fans to fund itself, and that the content on offer doesn't justify the ask. Others are blunter, calling it a cash grab and pointing out that the same money buys several complete games. A number of positive reviews concede the same point in passing before recommending it anyway — the phrase "if you can spare the cash" does a lot of work on that page.

The store listing also declares in-app purchases alongside the premium price, which is not the detail you want adjacent to a value complaint.

Whether that's fair depends on what you think you're buying. Judged as a full standalone release, it is thin. Judged as a substantial new mode for a game you already play, it's reasonable — and the existing-owner discount suggests Relic knows which of those framings is doing the selling.

The matchmaking hole, and the fix

The one criticism that wasn't about value was structural and serious: at launch, the two-player co-op mode had no matchmaking. You could play with people on your friends list, by invitation, or not at all.

For a game whose main pitch is co-operative wave defence, shipping without any way to find a partner is a real failure. It's also the clearest evidence in this review page's favour that Relic is listening: a hotfix on 1 August added a co-op lobby system, and at least one prominent negative review has been struck through and updated to credit the fix. That's three days from launch to addressing the loudest fixable complaint, which is fast.

How deep does it go

The durability question is where the game is weakest. Multiple players with double-digit hours report the unit and ability offers repeating within about three runs, which undercuts the "no two playthroughs are the same" promise the roguelite structure rests on. Five maps compounds it.

The achievement data suggests the long tail isn't materialising either: the most-earned achievement sits at 20%, and the faction mastery achievements — the top of those progression trees — are at 0.1% to 0.2%. Very few people are grinding to the end of what's there, four days in.

Verdict

Final Stand is a good idea, competently made, sold in the wrong wrapper. As a mode, it deserves to exist: PvE and co-op have been underserved in this genre for years, and the series' combat model turns out to be excellent at holding a line. As a purchase, it asks a lot for five maps and a repeating draft pool, and the market has told it so at length.

Six and a half out of ten — the gameplay is comfortably a 7.5 and the value is a 4, and where you land depends entirely on whether you're buying an evening with a friend or a full game. Wait for a sale, take the owner's discount if you have it, and know that the co-op you're buying it for now actually has a way to find people.

Players who want a defence that keeps holding while they're away from the desk — rather than one that needs twelve waves of their evening — may also enjoy Wanderer.