So that secret appointment I mentioned last week was my HoMM3 Remake remote play session that Ubisoft invited me to. This week was a bit weird, since I had my plans with friends during Gamescom Opening Night Live show and for next couple of days too, so I returned streaming when it was all announced and discussed somewhat. Another issue is that my gameplay footage captured by demoists haven’t arrived yet, so I don’t have my own screenshots and video material to show and to talk on stream. For now just “trust me, bro”.
Content creators that Ubisoft invited got to see the presentation where they explained their goals and priorities with this remake, new tutorial to onboard players and one classic game scenario with around two hours of free unrestricted gameplay there. Demoist basically just started stuff for me, then warned that I have 20 minutes left and then that my time is up, probably was their most boring session, because I was just playing and exploring stuff on my own.
One main negative thing that I noticed in current build is the lack of OG soundtrack, new music is alright, I guess, didn’t annoy me, but not having one of game’s signature features – beautiful OST, is really disappointing. I hope that will be sorted out and we’ll get it back by the time game releases.
Visuals are subjective and Olden Era got a lot of criticism initially about its looks too, so I hope they will polish the looks of some creatures a bit more, but in general it looks ok for my personal taste. City screens that I’ve seen were great actually, map and objects look good, readability, and better highlighting of objects hopefully will be improved later a bit.
Everything else is exactly the same old heroes, at least from that short time I got to play it. They are working with Horn of the Abyss team actually, so some QoL things are already implemented, including build orders that I don’t think are in HotA even, to spend less time building in your castles. They made a tool that converts any map created for HoMM3 ever into remake map, seems like a really cool feature if everything will be compatible that way. All main expansions are included in the remake, so hopefully no fiesta like with HD remaster version when you get only OG game.
I think as long as original game with HD mods, HotA and other things are still available to buy no problems without crazy prices there is nothing to complain about. If you like the charm of the old graphics – you have OG, if you don’t mind new look or especially if you are playing on the platform that doesn’t have OG game – you can buy Remake. Everyone is happy and hopefully more Heroes and just Might & Magic content will be coming soon, even if simple remasters for more people to enjoy such great games. Maybe one day new mainline entries of the series will appear then too and maybe will be even decent and we will be even happier.
One valid point I saw in the chat is that it’s a little weird of them announcing Heroes of Might & Magic 3 remake when Olden Era is still in Early Access, but it’s just 2027 for now. We’ll see when it will be actually releasing and when Olden Era hits 1.0, because they said they plan 1 year, then by May next year it will be out already, and Remake might be at the end of the year. I think it’s not a lot of audience canibalizing that way, but I do hope they will have a solid gap between.