Unofficial: Tales of Valor previewed

Details, details...

The eagle eyes of our reporters here at Rifles Ready! spotted a brief post over at PlanetCOH that purports to be a translation of a German gaming magazine’s preview of COH: Tales of Valor. Can you say all that five times fast? While I fully agree this information has traveled a remarkable distance (German-language magazine to translation by someone at the RelicNews forum to PlanetCOH to Rifles Ready!), it does seem totally genuine.

Here’s my summary of the translated information from the German magazine, PC Games.

There will be a new multiplayer mode where you — and possibly a teammate or two — must defend a civilian town against AI opponents.

There will be at least one new campaign, the Tiger Ace campaign, in which you will control ONE Tiger tank and possibly some support troops. Could this be the “direct-fire” mode? 

This campaign will play out in a special mode; the Tiger will be controlled by four soldiers, each with unique skills that can be improved with accumulated experience. There’s a maximum “level” cap of four. Increased levels allow the soldiers to provide the Tiger with new abilities. For instance, your gunner will gain the ability to fire high-explosive rounds when he’s leveled up. Other abilities will allow you to improve the Tiger’s maneuverability attributes. Experience gained and abilities upgraded will be preserved between missions.

The other new campaigns will take place in Normandy, but no word on whether they’ll be like the Tiger Ace campaign or be more conventional.

This is vague, but the German preview mentions Relic discussing “a system which lets the AI only see what a real tank could see.” I have no idea what this means, but maybe it means the Tiger can only see directly in front of it, with the fog of war obscuring everything outside that narrow area? Your guess is as good as mine.

There is no word on any new factions, but designers did mention an introductory cinematic that takes place in… *drumroll please* … LENINGRAD! Also PlanetCOH quotes the magazine as saying “the lead designer didn’t want to talk about things like ‘Russia’ (yet…).”

The Essence engine which powers COH will NOT be upgraded in ToV.

Please remember, as far as Rifles Ready! is concerned, these details are all very open to debate. The information here is like fifth-hand and filtered through a translation. It most definitely doesn’t meet our ideal journalistic standard, which would call for us to independently confirm the translation. Alas, I speak no German.

So: take it all with a grain of salt and wait for Relic to do an English-language interview. The fact they gave an exclusive to a German magazine must say a lot about COH’s fanbase, no?