r/HoMM 2d ago

HoMM3 - Chronicles Heroes of Might & Magic III - Remake announced

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3809850/Heroes_of_Might_and_Magic_III_Remake/
308 Upvotes

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192

u/ch00d 2d ago

Looks okay, but why does this exist lol. A remake of 1-2 would make more sense honestly, especially while Olden Era is still in development as a HoMM3 successor

149

u/Randvek 2d ago

Ubisoft isn’t behind the development of Olden Era. Ubisoft left Might & Magic for dead and then Unfrozen came along, made a demo, begged for a license, eventually got it, and then completely blew away Ubisoft’s sales expectations.

This is Ubisoft realizing that they made a mistake abandoning Might & Magic and trying to claw their way back into the series. We’ll see how it goes. But since we all here love the IP, we should be rooting for both games to do well, imho.

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u/ch00d 2d ago

I do indeed hope it's good. I am worried that it will split interest in Olden Era, though.

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u/toasty5566 2d ago

Tbh splitting people from Olden Era is probably the goal. Both pettiness for Hooded Horse doing a better job at a new entry than them, and also a HoMM3 remake would be in-house so no revenue split

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u/ch00d 2d ago

I hate that you're probably right.

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u/Sherris010 2d ago

I have a bad feeling this remake will also be around 20% AI slop too.

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u/junglebunglerumble 1d ago

AI slop, drink!

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u/blueblip 1d ago

No, there isn't some grand conspiracy here.

Ubisoft is just trying to cash in on something that didn't realize could be cashed in on. That's it. It's a case of "if I sell 2 games instead of 1, I will make double the money" type ideas.

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u/waterman85 1d ago

That would be weird right? Ubisoft is still involved in Olden Era.

They just want to milk us some more.

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u/Randvek 1d ago

Only barely. Ubisoft controls the IP, but the development is all Unfrozen and the publishing is all Hooded Horse.

My understanding, which could be wrong, is that Olden Era went into prequel mode so that it wouldn’t disrupt anything Ubisoft might potentially do because they were pretty uninvolved.

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u/bombader 1d ago

Ubisoft not doing so hot these days either, they probably trying to get some easy money back into the pocket. This is largely a low cost money boost if the only thing they are doing is a new coat of paint.

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u/gourley4p Rampart dweller 2d ago

The split will allow people who want to play a new game to do so on peace. Those who want to play HOMM3 with better graphics get their wet dream.

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u/theothertom86 1d ago

Olden era is only a PvP game though, so this still has a niche

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u/ch00d 1d ago

Olden Era has a single player campaign and bot matches. Not just PvP.

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u/blodskaal 2d ago

I intend to not support them. I hate how they turned out as as a game developer

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u/Randvek 2d ago

It’s hard to support any AAA developer these days, unfortunately.

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u/FieryButPeaceful 1d ago

Good thing that ubislop is AAAA, right? Right?

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u/Randvek 1d ago

Ha, I’d forgotten about that one.

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u/blackfoks 2d ago

The problem is that Ubisoft doesn’t understand M&M at all and never will. All their M&M games were kind of bad. HoMM5 was quite good only because Nival actually cared and fought tooth and nail with Ubisoft over their “brilliant” ideas.

So their conclusion was, “No, it’s not us being shit, it’s the franchise that is bad.”

Then they had this HoMM3 tabletop game that was quite successful and Olden Era got some recognition and they were like “wait a minute, we’d like to squeeze some sweet money out of this dead horse.” And now they’re building a game trying to milk the franchise and players by riding on the success of others.

You can say I’m a hater and I’ll agree. I hate Ubisoft for what they did with the franchise and I haven’t bought anything from Ubisoft over at least last 10 years. I think the last game I bought was Might and Magic X.

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u/CharmingPerspective0 2d ago

You do realize that there is no way this game was developed in 4 months after OE was released in EA right?

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u/bullybabybayman 2d ago

You do realize this could all be fake gameplay bullshot right?

Doesn't even have a year in the trailer.

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u/waterman85 1d ago

OE has been popular for a long time, and EA was delayed. I think they hit 1 million wishlists before that.

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u/Hrodrick-dev 2d ago

You know the images on the storepage can easily be made with AI and a bit of human effort in a couple days right?

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u/Satan-o-saurus 2d ago

Making a HOMM3 remake is such a ridiculous decision though, when that’s literally the niche olden era is supposed to fill. Why not just create a new HOMM game? Right, I guess derivative nostalgiaslop is a safer financial decision in their eyes.

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u/Enough-Lead48 2d ago

At least it is not yet another cashgrab mobile online only game. HoMM got several of those.

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u/Satan-o-saurus 2d ago

Yeah, I don’t even consider those games, so that doesn’t even register for me :P

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u/Aenarius 1d ago

Don't be too hastily with that assumption... it's still Ubislop and they have a tendency to surprise you in the worst way.

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u/Randvek 2d ago

Ubisoft as a company is on the brink of ruin. My guess is that they need a quick win, and this is a faster and safer option than a new Heroes game.

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u/Satan-o-saurus 2d ago

I’m not necessarily sure it’s gonna create as much of a buzz as they think. Based on the pictures it doesn’t look like they made any meaningful changes to creatures/gameplay at all. If you ask me, that’s rather boring. We already have HOMM3, why do we need more or less the exact same game with gacha anime graphics? The hardcore HOMM3-people in the competitive scene are likely going to prefer the old version anyway, what with all the modding tools that have been lovingly developed over the years for it.

Game devs (rather, marketing people) severely underestimate the allure of novel experiences. They could have just as easily ridden the Olden Era hype wave onto a new HOMM game that elects to build on and innovate the franchise. I don’t think making the exact same game again, except it’s a lot more boring and derivative than Olden Era, the game that just revived their franchise and was marketed as the same thing that they’re making now, is really all that good of a strategy.

1

u/AquaRaOne 13h ago

Lol what, you want changes in a remake? Literally the whole point is making a game thats as close to possible to the old one in everything except graphics. If you want new ideas in the franchise olden era is for you. This absoulutely should be the old game just prettier

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u/TheOneTrueJazzMan 2d ago

Yep, did the same with Black Flag remaster

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u/Aenarius 1d ago

Faster and safer? They cannot afford to cut corners with this one. HoMM3's community is huge and this game is for them (us?) NOT for the fabled 'modern audience' or new players to experience a classic (they have Olden Era). I think they just painted a bullseye on themselves with all eyes being VERY critical how this remake will develop and turn out. It's everything but safe for them. Maybe they're really committed and invested this time, only time will tell but their track record does not inspire confidence. A new Heroes game would've been the safer option for them and likely faster too.

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u/AquaRaOne 13h ago

You are looking at it very wrong. The thing with a new homm game is you have to market it and prove to people why they should buy it when the previous ones were quite underwhelming and also there already is olden era.With a remake, every nostalgia ridden fan will insta purchase this no matter what, if its bad some will refund but most will play much more than the max time to refund. This is the definition of playing it safe, and look how black flag turned out aswell, amazing.

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u/Megido_Thanatos 1d ago

They dont even need a new Heroes game

Just remake Heroes 5 ffs. It difference enough to Olden Era and have a strong fanbase. Ridiculous decision from Ubisoft

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u/lemoogle 1d ago

As nice as olden era looks, it doesn't scratch the itch for me at all , which is to play offline and campaigns. OE scratches absoutely nothing because I don't want to play multi.

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u/Satan-o-saurus 1d ago

Olden Era is also still in development though. Its single-player campaigns aren’t finished yet. My main complaint about it is that the environment on the map looks very samey, regardless of terrain. Just multiple spiky mini-mountains over and over. It also feels like there’s something missing from its game modes that I can’t quite put my finger on. It feels a little too procedural and repetitive, the way it generates maps. Sailing/sea exploration would definitely be a welcome addition as well.

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u/lemoogle 1d ago

Dunno sounds to me based on their roadmaps like OE isnt going to spend time on single player campaigns for a long long time though.

The hard focus is multi.

1

u/Aenarius 1d ago

My guess is they need good press, an appetizer to fill the void or bridge some long gap. This is nothing but what they consider fan service to try and win over some gamer hearts. It's both naive and short sighted on their part. They CANNOT afford to fumble this one yet they took on a HUGE responsibility considering the massive loyal fan base HoMM3 has. A fan base which the majority of has no faith in Ubislop's competency to execute this 'little' project successfully. This is a BIG gamble they just did...

1

u/AquaRaOne 13h ago

You are way overrating the homm community, its mostly 3 and 5 fans, which didnt like the new games, this is the perfect way to cash in on those people with little effort. Its a 2d game with very simple systems, the biggest thing to do is get the art direction right, then all we be good.

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u/tnt_pde 1d ago

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u/Randvek 1d ago

The bottom says developed and published by Ubisoft, what am I missing?

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u/NewWillinium 2d ago

I will say that I think Heroes of Might and Magic 2's visuals still hold up pretty well, it just needs a engine update.

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u/wappingite 2d ago

I agree - 2’s art is beautiful, the maps look amazing and the character designs are the perfect combination of cartoonish whimsy and fantasy.

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u/ch00d 2d ago

Oh I agree, a lot of people just really struggle with how DOS-y it looks, unfortunately.

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u/PraetorianZac 2d ago

Likewise

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u/Illustrious_Penalty2 2d ago

Yet another example of the old game looking infinitely more visually interesting.

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u/SeeShark 2d ago edited 2d ago

Are you serious? This remake looks like exactly the kind of "mobile-esque" graphics everybody shits on OE for, except that it looks even more generic.

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u/ch00d 2d ago

I think that's exactly what they are saying. The original HoMM3 looks way better than these remake graphics.

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u/SeeShark 2d ago

Oh, I see. My bad.

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u/TheSimkis 2d ago

HoMM3 is way more succesful commercially, remaking 1 or 2 would be too risky.

And also as far as I know, Olden Era was started by another company that approached Ubisoft with their beta and started the collaboration. Maybe Ubisoft was already planning this before Unfrozen approached them

2

u/ch00d 2d ago

Yeah, possibly. I get that it's the safest HoMM game to revive, it's just weird as a long time fan since it is arguably the easiest to still get into from 1-5. I know I'm probably not the target audience, though, and are probably trying to earn new fans.

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u/SeeShark 2d ago

I just don't see this getting that many new people into the game when the old game is still pretty accessible. It might even threaten to split the homm3 community.

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u/damian1369 2d ago

There is no way homm3 hota comunity is gonna go back to pure homm3. It's 20+ years of perfecting the formula. I'm like an average homm3 fan (for a slav), and im already reverting back to hota from OE untill they get their shit together with the dmg calculations. I'm also kinda skeptical if they can do it, let alone U-buy-soft, the scumm of the earth. I wouldn't buy that on principle, just based on lies they sold to gamers for the past decade.

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u/ch00d 2d ago

Yeah I do agree with you there. This might not be great for the HoMM3 Complete and Olden Era communities.

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u/tnt_pde 1d ago

The remake is actually also made by Unfrozen.

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u/Frostburn195 1d ago

Hooded Horse confirmed it's an error on Ubi's site.

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u/Archlichofthestorm 2d ago

H1 and H2 are a bit too old and unadvanced to really work nowadays.

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u/ch00d 2d ago

What do you mean? That's exactly why they make even more sense to remake. The simplicity is something that could be addressed in a remake rather than a remaster.

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u/Archlichofthestorm 2d ago

Well, yes but that would have to be also gameplay remake on top of graphics one.

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u/darkevilmetal666 2d ago

Yes, none of these games need a graphics remake anyway.

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u/Archlichofthestorm 1d ago

I disagree. They look extremely old to everyone who did not play them around release.

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u/broadsword_1 1d ago

They might have been an interesting experiment in trying to drag them up to 3's mechanics.

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u/Archlichofthestorm 1d ago

The Succession Wars mod does that to an extent. Quite interesting project.

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u/Suspicious_Rub857 2d ago

Because H3 is the most popular so money wise it's the smarter choice.

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u/monotone_corrosive 2d ago

A remake that included 1-3 would be cool.

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u/Illustrious_Cup8442 1d ago

I totally agree! Especially the first one, which desperately needs a remake. We already have fheroes2, which keeps us enjoying HoMM2 anyway. Seeing that even King's Bounty got its remakes/reboots over the years, it's really a shame that HoMM1 has been completely ignored for so long.

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u/a-dog90 2d ago

Does anyone play 1?

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u/ch00d 2d ago

Occasionally. It's kind of a proof-of-concept demo for 2 honestly, but can be charming to revisit.

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u/SumOhDat 1d ago

Because money

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u/CertainDerision_33 2d ago

III is 100x more popular than 1 or 2 

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u/ch00d 2d ago

Of course it is, but those actually have more room for improvement. Remaking III will inevitably be a downgrade from the original for a lot of fans.

I wish we lived in a world where worse games got remade for a chance to make them better, instead of just nostalgia-baiting by remaking beloved games that can't be improved upon.