So how is the Heroes of Might and Magic game series like the Police Academy movie series? Both franchises started off strong and gained a wide following, but quickly ended up overworking the concept and falling apart after several sequels. At least that’s how Stéphane Decroix sees it, and as the executive producer for Heroes of Might and Magic V, he should be able to speak with authority. “Heroes of Might and Magic was starting to fall apartâ€�, Decroix noted, “It’s a bit like the Police Academy series, really.” Yikes – that’s quite a way to introduce your new game!

But Decroix’s words have a strong element of truth behind them. Heroes III is widely recognized by gamers and industry experts alike as being the best game in the series. The release of Heroes IV was highly anticipated and as the gaming community expected great things from the next installment in the series. Instead, they were sorely disappointed. The game was plagued with bugs and required numerous patches to fix coding errors and omissions. Frustrated gamers lamented over the lack of testing and criticized the developer of pushing the game out as fast as they could to avoid bankruptcy. Adding injury to insult, many of the features and options loved by fans of Heroes III were removed and redone, alienating a large number of gamers. But perhaps most devastating to the developer, though, was the widespread compliant that the game was…. well, boring…

Luckily for fans of Heroes III, the latest installment of the series, Heroes V is returning to its roots and revisiting the popular gameplay style and design of the third game. The game’s Associate Producer, Erwan Le Breton, explains that when Heroes fans were consulted in the early stages of developing asking them what they wanted in the sequel, nearly all of them answered “We want Heroes 3, with new graphics.” With this in mind, the game was consciously designed using Heroes III as the baseline. Breton goes on to reveal that there were three key concepts that the development team wanted to keep in the sequel: (1) the way that the world is divided into factions, (2) “The epic dimension of the Might and Magic games - it was always about saving the world or destroying it, fighting hordes of monsters, becoming a very powerful character, exploring huge elements, etc., and (3) a return to the sense of moral ambiguity present in previous games.

So besides returning to the elements of Heroes III, what else has changed in Heroes V to bring fallen fans back to the game? Developer Nival made significant changes to the interface, the balance of the game, and improved tutorials to make the game both easier to play and more accessible to gamers of all levels. Players will spend less time reading long detailed quests screens, navigating pop-up windows, and moving across large battlefields. Major modifications have also been made to the game’s battle system including changing battlefields to an 8 by 10 grid, making battles faster and much more intense.

Heroes V’s new ghost mode is an innovative new way to deal with the chief problem faced by the multiplayer mode in a turn-based game: waiting around for your opponent to make their move. When ghost mode is turned on, players can move about a ethereal blue version of the game board while their opponent is strategizing. Exploring the map in ghost mode allows you to take advantage of a variety of things including mining gold, cursing your opponent’s troops, and possessing neutral creatures to force them to fight on your side. Since moving in ghost mode costs energy points, the longer your opponent takes to move, the more time and points you have to spend exploring the map.

The new duel mode allows players to set up short multiplayer battles up to 20 minutes in length – perfect for the quick break between classes or chores.

So it’s clear that the multiplayer mode is getting some significant enhancements, but those who prefer to go it alone can rest assured that Nival has also spent a lot of time on making sure the single player campaign is just as much fun to play.
It’s spread over 30 missions, and over the estimated 60-80 hours it’ll take you to complete the game you’ll get to play as “six different factions one after the other, centered around one plot,” Le Breton says. “It’s really something that you never had the chance to experience in Heroes before.”

And of course, what would the new Heroes sequel be without improved graphics? Heroes 5 will be the first of the games in the series to feature fully 3D polygonal graphics, while a 3D camera allows for zooming in on areas of the map. Battle scenes offer a number of impressive character animations and special effects. But most importantly, notes Decroix, Heroes V is a “much more user-friendly system.”

So will Heroes V reanimate those fans left out to dry with the release of Heroes IV? Will the game match the success and popularity of Heroes III? Nival and Ubisoft both certainly hope so as another failure sequel will spell disaster for the franchise. Only time will reveal the might of the latest Heroes sequel.

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