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Might & Magic Heroes VI

Beta Begins For Pre-Order Customers



The franchise turns 25 today, and hopefully Ubisoft will be turning a corner in its stewardship of Might & Magic with Heroes VI. Anyone who pre-ordered the game can fire up the beta starting today to start seeing for themselves.

The Heroes VI beta includes a brief tutorial and one map from the single-player campaign proper, as well as a remake of the Broken Alliances multiplayer map from Heroes II. The Haven, Orc, Inferno, Necropolis, and Stronghold factions are playable for now, and the campaign level introduces the new naga-populated Sanctuary faction.

One interesting feature that is enabled in the beta is the Conflux. Apparently, Ubi intends for this to be an online hub for the game that includes social features and more, which would be a fantastic addition to the Heroes series.

Check back later for more on the beta after I've had a chance to mess around with it. If it sucks, I'm going to cry – too much of my gaming identity was formed under the first three Heroes titles.

Until then, Ubi would love for you to watch this cheesy highlight reel of the 25 years of Might & Magic to date. Man, EGA was awesome. You don't even know how good Might & Magic II looked in four colors after cutting my teeth on the black-and-white Mac port of the first game.

 

Heroes VI launches September 6 on PC.

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Comments
  • I remember the old N64 Might and Magic game I played. I can't remember what it was called though... I've been a fan of the series ever since.

  • This looks like a RPG is it ???????????????
  • I've been a fan of this series since HOMM II.  IV was a little mis-step art style wise, but this looks like it will be pretty good.

  • Were this being shown to an audience, 1:07 would be the point of the roaring cheers (obviously)...

  • Glad to see I'm not the only one with fond memories of HOMM. I played the hell outta the first 3 and kinda lost interest after that, but if this is good it just might get me playing it again.

  • Staff

    Well yeah, IV was pretty much crap that 3D0 rushed out the door to try to forestall bankruptcy. V was pretty fun but had atrocious AI and campaign design.

    Like I said, if VI sucks I'ma cry.

  • Nice, I love Heroes of Might and Magic, video made a tear come out of my eye, though I have never played the Might and Magic first person series, I still like that they include the heroes names and keep it close to the story, hope this game is great, I might just get it either way, love a good turn based game fix every now and then.

  • My favorite was HOMM 3, have also played HOMMs 4 and 5 and neither were bad. The major reason why HOMM 4 was a let down is because it was the sequel to HOMM 3, which was the best one. And while HOMM 4 had it's fair share of problems, it was definitely still fun.

  • As far as I'm concerned, Ubi Soft "turned a corner in their stewardship" of the franchise with Capy's EXCELLENT DS/XBLA/PSN strategy/puzzle hybrid "Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes". Really, really excellent portable game. With all the charm of a 16-bit classic RPG too. That studio is talented.

    And come to think of it, Dark Messiah was pretty good too.

    I honestly have no complaints with how Ubi's been handling the series thus far. Then again, I have never played the original strategy games. Always just kept passing 'em by on GOG.com. Don't look like my cup o' tea...

  • Eh, it's nice to see how it has advanced through it's series but looks to complicated for my taste. Maybe one day but not right now.

  • ***, I've only played Heroes 2 and Heroes 4, but both were sheer awesome back in the day. Might have to look this up, it being the next even-numbered entry of the Heroes series.

  • I didn't see any details on the site about registering for the beta without preordering it.  TBH, I thought HOMM 5 was a horrendous failure.  I got my last tactical battle fix from King's Bounty: Armored Princess.

  • I miss the first person Might and Magic series, I must have beaten VII and VIII 5 times each, too bad IX sucked so bad and then they just stopped making them!

  • Nice!

  • cool