The options need to use essentially the same game engines as COH1 or COH2. For a company like Relic to make a new game essentially from scratch just isn't in the cards.
By 2018 or 2019 there will be a whole new crop of gamers, so maybe a new audience? Of course we will no longer be in the shadows of Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers, which laid the groundwork for the popularity of the games.
But sticking to the pieces that work means a COH3 (or even a COH2.5 made with much less resources) is possible. Take the factions and tree design of COH1 (or even just the original vanilla factions) and add a few doodads from COH2 (trusight, etc.). Add back target tables.
But I don't think it will happen. The designers of COH1 haven't existed since before Tales of Valor. There became a fetish for "difference" in the factions. (One has a mortar so another shouldn't, etc.) there wasn't an appreciation for just how similar Wehr and US were in comparison to today's COH2 factions, yet how differently they played despite that, and that went well beyond the bought vs. earned veterancy.
The US mortar was sort of like the Wehr mortar, the bike sort of like the jeep, both had AT tanks (m10s vs StuGs), medium tanks, light vehicles, AT guns. but the little differences (some bigger than others) and the different tech levels made them still feel very different. And the commander trees really did change the style of play and added to the strategic choices, rather than just a choice of doodads and upgrades.
But Relic today doesn't want that. The decision is that people want difference and the more difference the better. That flaw is proven by all the changes made since to smooth out those balances.
COH2.5, or a "new" COH1 is possible. Heck, modders could probably design it pretty well. It could (probably) be done cheaply. I am not sure in the age of Counterwatch, DOTA, etc. that there is an audience. But if made cheaply it could make money so you should use the older tools and design that had proved to work instead of redesigning it from scratch.
My hopes is that Relic learns from the mistakes of CoH1 and CoH2 and doesn't revive them in CoH3 when they run out of ideas for new factions.
This I hope that CoH3 will not see the likes of:
- Mortar Pits / Bofors / FlakHQ / Orbital Death Canons
- Forward Trucks
- Aura units that focus on BS raw buffs (e.g., UKF officer, P4) rather than utility (e.g., OST officer)
- Powerful, cheap call-ins invalidating expensive tech
- Dirt-cheap/free recon options invalidating true sight (UKF free recon, flares, etc)
- IR-halftrack, Kubelwagen, Valentine passive see-through in particular. I mean, come on.
With respect to Tank vs Infantry combat, I think CoH1 had a perfect balance:
- Both Tanks and infantry AT suffered from elevation/obstacles (in CoH2 zooks/schrecks are homing)
- Crushing infantry meant your tank would slow down. There was a clear trade-off
- Very limited snares that were difficult to pull off
- Infantry AT had a very long aim-time which made schreck-blobbing unreliable
- (except for 222's in CoH1. Those things were messed up)
I think some of the ideas of Tank-vs-infantry combat in CoH2 are pretty decent, but it doesn't feel even:
- Schrecks/Zooks have 0 aim-time and are homing missiles with super-long-range and guaranteed good-damage.
- Tank shells will just get stopped at the first possible elevation
- Instead, tanks have to rely on BS-strong crushing, of which Cromwell/M10 are ridiculously good at
- To fight this off, you have the proliferation of easy snares, everywhere. The latter makes snares feel like "A basic tool that all mainline-infantry should have", although it should have been a rare luxury, really.
- Finally, since you have snares everywhere, Light Vehicles should be BS-strong, so that they remain useful.
Overall, I prefer CoH2 over CoH1 (even though I preferred CoH1 at the launch of CoH2), but I believe that a CoH3 that marries the best of both worlds will be the dream.
Basically, CoH3 will be a great game if and only if no CoH3 faction has features that have any passing resemblance to any of the following two factions:
- CoH1 Brits (pre- and post-Kangaroo)
- CoH2 OKW at WFA-release