Nival Interactive

Heroes of Might and Magic 5 [PC – Alpha / Beta]

Heroes of Might and Magic 5 is a turn-based strategy game developed by Nival Interactive and published by Ubisoft in May 2006, as a reboot of the series. As we can read on Wikipedia Ubisoft acquired the rights to Might and Magic as far back as 2003, when 3DO filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. At the time New World Computing were already working on a new 2D Heroes of Might and Magic for 3DO, but when Ubisoft bought the franchise they ditched NWC’s versions to start a new, fully 3D game. In 3 years the new version of HoMM5 changed a lot and thanks to a leaked alpha version of the game we can see many of these “beta differences”:

– the interface is completely different in nearly every respect with a lot of prototype stuff

– hero portraits are completely different (Isabel is a photoshop of Kate Beckinsale)

– many creatures have different textures

– the priest/inquisitor has a different model, which was replaced when Games Workshop confronted Ubisoft for plagiarism

– many structures have different models and textures

– different sense of scale in the adventure map, much closer to Heroes 3 (in retail version everything is bigger and more “epic” than practical)

– battlefields of varied size (some battlefields are smaller than the one size in retail)

– the town screen is very different, a static 3D shot similar to previous games (in retail it’s an elaborate flyover)

– only one scenario/map, and the map doesn’t exist in the retail game

– only one faction (Haven)

– there is no world of Ashan (Ubisoft’s fictional world from the retail game), it’s set in Axeoth (the world of Heroes 4)

– different and reshuffled/repurposed music

Thanks to Erwin for the contribution!

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