Company of Heroes 3’s new Battlegroup leans into fortifications — but is it enough?

Why this matters: Endure & Defy isn’t just another DLC

Relic’s new Battlegroup DLC, Company of Heroes 3: Endure & Defy, dropped on November 27, 2025 and it caught my attention because it deliberately pivots the meta toward defense and attrition – a contrast to the hit-and-run, mobile playstyles that have dominated recent patches. At $24.99 on Steam (10% off for two weeks), the pack ships with four faction-specific Battlegroups, fresh maps, new units and mechanics, and the Scarlet Bison patch that actually fixes long-standing headaches like towing and garrison behavior. For players invested in ranked play and the multiplayer scene, this is the sort of targeted shakeup that can either refresh matchmaking or just entrench a new stale standard.

• Price & offer: $24.99 on PC (Steam), two-week 10% discount – not cheap but not full‑price expansion territory.
• Design shift: Battlegroups built around fortifications, attrition units, and map control.
• Patch payoff: Scarlet Bison adds QoL, tank & garrison fixes, multiplayer tweaks, and 2,000+ voice lines.
• Roadmap scope: Relic promises four Battlegroups in 2025 and four more in 2026 – plenty of new toys, fewer guarantees about balance.

Breaking down Endure & Defy — what players actually get

On paper, this DLC is a meaningful design experiment. The new Battlegroup suite favors defensive structures and units that win by wearing the enemy down — think bunkers, attrition-focused infantry, and systems that buff nearby units. New maps like Langres, Angoville, and Gabès Gap are built around chokepoints and layered objectives, which reinforces the defensive theme. That’s smart design: when your maps and Battlegroups push the same story, you get more interesting choices. But it also raises questions: will defensive play reduce pacing and spectacle in multiplayer matches, or give weary defenders a legitimate counter to runaway mobile strategies?

Scarlet Bison patch — polish or placeholder?

Scarlet Bison (2.2.0) lands alongside the DLC and is arguably the practical win for everyday players. The patch addresses long-bothersome issues — towing mechanics, engineers interacting with team weapons, and unit pathfinding — and tweaks tank and garrison behavior. Relic also bundled in over 2,000 new voice lines, which sounds impressive until you realize audio bloat can’t cover up mechanical problems. Still, the QoL improvements and targeted nerfs to dominant units are the kind of iterative fixes this franchise needed after COH2’s messy balance swings.

Where this sits in Relic’s larger strategy

Relic has been on a steady cadence: major patches like Opal Scorpion earlier in 2025, the Hammer & Shield pack, and now Endure & Defy. The 2025-2026 roadmap promises eight new Battlegroups across two years, plus maps and cosmetics. That’s content velocity, and for a live-service RTS it’s crucial — but content alone doesn’t guarantee a healthy multiplayer ecosystem. The real test is whether Relic can keep balance responsive to the competitive scene and avoid a cycle of overbuff/nerf that alienates either casual players or high-level competitors.

What this means for different players

• Casual/co‑op players: New maps and QoL fixes are an immediate quality-of-life boost. The defensive Battlegroups open new ways to feel powerful without perfect micro.
• Competitors/streamers: Expect meta shifts and a period of experimentation. Watch for whether defensive setups dominate or become a niche counterplay.
• Collectors: The price is middling for a Battlegroup pack; cosmetics in other packs still look like the primary monetization vector.

My skepticism: Relic’s roadmap is ambitious, but delivering new Battlegroups is the easy part — balancing them so every match feels meaningful is the hard part. If Scarlet Bison’s balance pass is any signal, Relic is listening; but repeated nerfs to “dominant” units can hollow out meaningful choices unless replacements are exciting.

TL;DR

Endure & Defy brings a welcome defensive angle and a practical patch in Scarlet Bison — worth buying if you like experimenting with map control and fortifications. The $24.99 price and short discount window are fair, but the long-term value depends on whether Relic keeps balance smart and avoids turning new Battlegroups into paywalled band-aids. If you play multiplayer or care about the competitive ladder, keep an eye on the next few balance passes: this update could be a fresh start or just a new meta to nerf.