Heroes of Might and Magic 3 – Fan Modifications Highlight

Heroes of Might and Magic 3 - Fan Modifications Highlight

Returning to Heroes of Might and Magic series in the review of Era of Chaos and then reflecting on the long rich story of the franchise left me amazed with how much love fans still have for Heroes 3. So much so one can still find online tournaments as well as various fan modifications that change the game in a meaningful way. Below you can find some of the most impressive fan mods for HoMM3 out there.

HoMM3 HD – High-Resolution Project:

HoMM3 HD is a non-official fan-made addon (multifunction patch) for Heroes of Might and Magic 3 and a must-have for any HoMM3 player with a newer system. The mod changes the game’s resolution from 800×600 to up to 4000×4000, adds new functionality and fixes some original bugs.

Initially, the addon was created to change the original game resolution 800×600 to a bigger but now it has even more features. HoMM 3 HD does not affect the original gameplay and improves the interface functionality, makes it more comfortable to play and fixes a some original game bugs. All the tiny graphical improvements preserve the original game style. HoMM 3 HD does not affect the original game files. This means that you can launch the original version with no changes from the very folder where the HoMM 3 HD was installed.

Thanks to @weilan for the suggestion!

HoMM3: Horn of the Abyss

Horn of the Abyss or HotA is a fan-made modification for HoMM3: Shadow of Death aimed at enhancing gameplay, in-game balance and graphics of the original game while preserving its mechanical side. The team believes that the two expansions to Heroes 3 (Armageddon’s Blade and Shadow of Death) did not reveal the true potential of the game due to in parts the lack of content elements.

Horn of the Abyss introduces new campaigns as well as various scenarios, new neutral creatures, objects, artifacts and more.

One of the most impressive parts of the modification is the new town known as the Cove, reflecting the theme of pirates of Regna. The developers are working on another town called Factory that will receive its own campaign as well.

Note: HotA requires clean HoMM3: Shadow of Death or the HoMM3 Complete Edition in order to be installed successfully. 

HoMM3: The Succession Wars

Fans of the series will know that The Succession Wars were the main campaign of the base HoMM2 game. Heroes of Might and Magic III: The Succession Wars is a total conversion of Heroes III dedicated to the fairy-tale atmosphere and graphic style of its prequel, Heroes II. The modification adds a lot of new content, such as creatures, castles, and artifacts to name a few, and provides fresh gaming impressions as well as a great amount of nostalgic feelings at the same time.

The developers’ plans mention the expansion of the project to include the evolution of the story of Enroth, reflecting the Might & Magic RPG series from New World Computing.

Note: the modification requires clean HoMM3: Shadow of Death/Complete Edition. No mods, including WoG, HotA or HD.

HoMM 3.5: In the Wake of Gods

Heroes of Might and Magic III: In the Wake of Gods (WoG, ERA) is a massive fan-modification of Heroes 3, stretching the boundaries of the original game’s capabilities and revamping the gameplay in a major way. WoG presents new objects with various properties, drastically changed and improved creature abilities and a wide variety of custom scripts.

Some of the things added in WoG include new tier 8 creatures, the ability to destroy and build towns, new neutral creatures, artifacts, map objects, towns and more.

It can be tricky to install In the Wake of Gods without running into any errors so the website of the modification has a lengthy guide on how to do so.

Note: for the installation, it is required to have Heroes 3 installed on your computer, ideally the Complete version, highly recommended from the site GOG.COM.

Special mentions:

  • Legend of the Red Dragon – new spells, creatures, artifacts and more.
  • The Tides of War – Alternative units are the core of the mod, but it features much more: new splash screen, new graphics, skills, objects, spells, heroes and so on.
  • Master of Puppets – Master of Puppets is a global HoMM 3 mod, initially based on WoG, featuring: 200+ new artifacts, 7 new spells and 2 new secondary skills, 80+ new creatures, including raid bosses and new siege machine – aerostat. New map objects with unique events, creature banks and landscape.

Games like Heroes of Might and Magic:

Sadly, there are no mainstream Heroes games by Ubisoft coming any time soon. If you were looking for a game like Heroes of Might and Magic releasing in the near future, then you might be interested in Songs of Conquest and King’s Bounty 2 among other turn-based strategy titles.

Songs of Conquest

Songs of Conquest is a turn-based strategy game inspired by 90s classics. Lead powerful magicians called Wielders and venture to lands unknown. Wage battle against armies that dare oppose you and hunt for powerful artifacts. The world is ripe for the taking – seize it!

Explore a wide variety of maps with diverse enemies and valuable loot. Venture into contrasting biomes with unique enemy factions, environments and battlefields.

Manage resources, research new advancements and expand your kingdom. Plan your towns to match your playstyle – will you utilise brute force, magic or a mix of both? There are many paths to world domination.

Check out the Steam page to find out more. Now available in Steam Early Access.

King’s Bounty 2

King’s Bounty II is the long-awaited sequel to the legendary King’s Bounty video games franchise, one of the most iconic representatives of the turn-based RPG genre. Expanding on this legacy with an entirely new epic story, factions, enemies, and new features to forge an open and breaking fantasy world Antara. With the kingdoms in disarray, counties demanding independence, bandits prowl the roads, all the overseas nations have denied the King’s authority over them, and blighted creatures lie in wait for the unwary, new accidental heroes emerge as a last hope.

They are determined to bring order to the chaos. Play as one of them, recruiting, developing, and commanding your personal army on a non-linear adventure of betrayal, sacrifice, and survival. Fighting for your own future, outsmarting enemy in uniquely turn-based combat, making difficult decisions, and experience the intensity of one of the classic sagas in an exciting new way.

Check out our review or the official site to find out more. Available now.

Disciples: Liberation

Liberate the land of Nevendaar and uncover the endless stories hidden within this richly detailed world where every decision has a consequence, and every wrong move could be deadly. Explore a rich overworld and align with a variety of in-world factions: from a human empire tinged by religious extremism to the dark forces of the undead lead by a mad queen.

Assemble a team to gather precious resources, sway political standing, and take on brutal beasts in intricate turn-based battles.

Check out our review or the Steam page to find out more. Available now.

THE DRAGONNESS: COMMAND OF THE FLAME

You take on a role of a Commander recruited by The Dragonness. Your task includes embarking on an epic quest across the Draithir Peninsula – a land ravaged by warring factions of Dragons – to conquer and bring peace to the world. Only by recruiting a powerful beast army and managing your resources will you be able to prepare yourself for the dangers that lie ahead – where only keen strategic thinking and tactical skill will see you emerge victorious.

Your battle skills alone might not be enough to save the world from succumbing to darkness. Prove your worth as The Dragoness’ Commander, by guiding your city and army to splendour. Gather resources, care for your monsters, manage the development of your base and decide on the direction of your progress. In this world, your choices are everything: pick the paths to explore and beasts to collect; choose which fights are worth the effort and which should be avoided for now. Don’t give up hope – for every defeat will make you more powerful than ever!

Steam page contains more details about the upcoming game.

Written by
A lover of all things RPG and TBS, Catherine is always looking for a new fantasy world to get lost in.

3 Comments

  1. Discovering Horn of the Abyss caused a complete rebirth of my passion for HoMM3. Not that I ever lost passion for it or stopped playing it for 21 years, it’s just that it was getting stale with the same old content and this mod adds so much to the game and the best thing is they are working on new content, so in a way the content development for the game has not stopped.

    I think you forgot to mention that Horn of the Abyss is only compatible with the GOG Complete version and probably the original CD version from back in the day, but I haven’t had the chance to test it on that one.

    Another thing I did not see being mentioned is the HD Mod: https://sites.google.com/site/heroes3hd/

    The mod also works only with the GOG and CD version (and with HoTA too, I think it may be developed by the same people) and it aims to allow the game to run in a native resolution to any screen as it gives you the option to specify your own resolution so it’s allegedly supposed to work with even the weirdest resolutions possible. Another feature of the HD Mod is upscaling, which allows you to “zoom” the game in case it looks too small on your big monitor.

    I have played Wake of the Gods back in the day and it has fascinating features, like really awesome features and it comes with tools that allow you to create your own ERM scripts for custom maps and with proper scripting, it can make a single map feel like a completely different game. Sadly I stopped playing it, because back in the day it would accumulate errors the more I played on a map and saving, restarting the game and reloading did not help. Another issue for me was the visual discrepancy of objects and enemies from the Vanilla game. I hear now with ERA II, the development on WoG has been renewed by different people and the mods listed below: Legend of the Red Dragon, The Tides of War, Master of Puppets all are based and run on top of WoG and ERA II, but I haven’t really tried them, maybe one day when I get bored.

    And finally Songs of Conquest… I’m really looking forward to this game, I have joined their Discord and they occasionally post development updates on their blog with what they have updated into the game, I even had a chat with a few of the developers on some aspects of the game and I like how open and transparent they are, they really have something great going there and I hope at some point they release a playable demo so people can test the game and provide even more feedback before they get too deep into development and it’s too late for fundamental changes. One of the best features in HoMM3 that kept me playing for 21 years was the Random Map Generator, so I asked the developers of SoC if the game will have a RMG and they told me not at first, but it will ship with a Map Editor tool so people can make their own maps, which is fantastic. I would really want to support the game if it hits the spot for me.

    • @weilan thank you for your suggestion! I have added Heroes 3 HD to the list as well as notes to the versions of the game required for the installation of the mods.

      I have to admit to not having played Horn of the Abyss. I have tried out WoG many years ago and was blown away with the obvious passion the creators have for the game and the sheer volume of content they have added. I was lucky enough to end up with no conflicts or errors in the mod itself, but in the end for me personally it moved too far away from the classic gameplay of the Vanilla game in some parts of it.

      Maybe when I’m done with the approaching annual “replay the Heroes series” undertaking, I’ll try out HotA and the Succession Wars mod that also looks spectacular!

      • I can’t speak for the Succession Wars as it’s just HoMM2 and I haven’t really delved into that… yet.

        But regarding HoTA, there is a new campaign introducing the Cove town and everything related to it, it’s a bit shorter compared to the ones that came with the base game, but at least the story is more engaging. One nice touch I noticed in the HoTA campaigns was that they created their own cinematics that aim to recapture that feel of old, shitty 3D CGI and if you don’t know that HoTA is fan-made, you’d think by looking at the cinematics, it’s the real, official deal, straight from NWC and 3DO.

        Another cool thing about HoTA is that around the beginning of 2020, they added a new secondary skill into the game called Intervention that reduces the power level of the enemy you’re currently fighting, effectively reducing their spellcasting capabilities.

        The people working on the HD mod and HoTA are remarkable individuals who have done a fantastic job, I can’t even say anything negative about it as I haven’t found anything to complain about yet and I’ve been playing HoTA for a few years now.

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