Company of Heroes gets beta patch, Company of Heroes Online gets more maps

Company of Heroes Online is shutting down on March 31, but that hasn't stopped the developers from releasing two new maps for the game.

Company of Heroes Online is shutting down on March 31, but that hasn't stopped the developers from releasing two new maps for the game. The four player skirmish map Road to Montherme and an eight player version of the classic Hill 331 maps were added to Company of Heroes Online on Friday. A beta patch for the original Company of Heroes is also available to test now on Steam.

The new maps were announced on the Company of Heroes Online blog. The Road to Montherme was constructed by Company of Heroes modder Mannerheim, and features a narrow road surrounded by tight forested pathways. The second map is an eight player reworking of one of Company of Heroes' most insane maps, Hill 331, in which all players are funnelled towards a key victory point on the top of a heavily fortified mound of earth and barbed wire.

Validation requirements have also been lowered for all of the rewards in Company of Heroes Online, meaning that experience and gear are easier to come by. This will allow current players to see a lot of the high level units before the game shuts down for good at the end of March. The game will be available to downloadand play for another six weeks, and includes Company of Heroes' superb single player campaign for free.

When Relic made the announcement that Company of Heroes Online would be closing, they also promised that they would apply everything they'd learned to the original game and the two expansions, Opposing Fronts and Tales of Valour. As a result there's now a patch available on Steam. This fixes a ton of bugs and adds a series of balance changes. The latest patch notes are listed on the Company of Heroes forums. Hopefully Relic will bring the new maps across to the retail of Company of Heroes at some point in future.