World War II started in 1939 and ended in 1945. That's sixty-one years ago by my math. The videogame industry has obsessed over this span of six years for longer than the real war was actually waged. It has created innumerable (literally) games from shooters to flight sims to strategy - and everything in between. Honestly, how many more games can be milked out of this moment in history? How many times - and from how many different perspectives - are we going to invade Normandy and push the Nazi regime back into the hellhole they climbed out of? And do we really care anymore?

Company of Heroes, a real time strategy game from Relic Entertainment, aims to answer those questions. It follows the men of Able Company as they storm the beaches of Normandy on D-Day and fight their way across Europe... blah blah blah. So what makes Relic think they can do anything new with this relic of a theme? First, they know how to do strategy games, what with the success of the Homeworld and Warhammer 40,000 series. Plus, after years of very little innovation in the RTS arena, they're hoping to finally advance the genre by bringing three all new elements to the battle.

Let's start with the "Essence Engine," Relic's next-gen graphics engine promises to provide unprecedented cinematic visual detail. Their aim isn't just to change the way people look at real time strategy games, but the actual look of the genre itself. If you've seen any of the in-game footage widely available across the 'Net, you know they aren't just blowing smoke up our fatigues. Heroes looks absolutely amazing.

The next volley from their three-pronged attack is something called "Environmental Strategy." It uses real-time physics with completely destructible environments, guaranteeing that no two battles ever play out the same way. According to Heroes producer John Johnson: "We have created dynamic and destructible battlefields where players can alter any part of the landscape to fit their strategic play style. Destroying a bunch of cover objects will deny the enemy the use of that cover, but conversely will also deny you that same cover. Take out a church and you've eliminated a possible sniper nest that could be used by you or the enemy. Drop in some off-map artillery, and now you've not only taken out whatever was unlucky enough to be under the bombardment, but you've also created some new cover in the form of craters. Every object in the world has properties that the soldiers in the game are aware of. They know how to use these objects effectively for cover, and will do so without requiring micromanagement from the player, leaving the player to focus on the bigger picture."

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