How did the former RPG king drain his blood

humiliating death.

When talking about the history of European and American games, there is always a common concept – “Genesis”, “Witchcraft” and “Might and Magic” are known as the three major RPGs in Europe and America”. Among them, Genesis, as its name suggests, opened up the era of video game RPGs with a graphical interface; Witchcraft highly simulated D&D rules, and since then greatly influenced the design of Japanese-style RPG gameplay; and Might and Magic is a big world exploration with environmental design. , famous for its game mechanics that break the D&D monopoly and its outstanding worldview.

But today, some thirty years after that “golden age”, they have enough dust to build a mountain. Sometimes there are dusters for them, but it is just to show their decayed light, to show off their feelings and do some cowardly things. You must know that the Legend of Zelda, Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy and other games around the same period are still prosperous.

There are so many stories about them that I can’t possibly understand them all, and here I just want to talk about Might and Magic, a great series that took its last breath seven years ago and is still breathing.

one

Chinese players come into contact with Might and Magic, mostly from “Heroes of Might and Magic 3”, a war chess game with a high status in the domestic game industry – the full name of Heroes of Might and Magic 3 is “Might and Magic: Heroes of Might and Magic 3”. But before we talk about what may be the most successful spin-off franchise in gaming history, we have a lot more to say.

The birth of Might and Magic is a pretty standard Silicon Valley story. A man named Jon
Inspired by Genesis and Witchcraft, Van Caneghem’s students decided to learn programming outside of medicine to make their own games. With the support of his father, he founded a company, New World Computing (NWC), with his friends and girlfriend.

After the initial struggle, “Might and Magic I” was released in 1986 on the Apple II platform, the most-owned personal computer platform at the time. With the inflow of funds, it was transplanted to Macintosh computers, NES, IBM computers and other platforms. , Under the virtuous circle, the company was finally able to develop new works.

The original game was written in assembly code by Canchem, and had top-notch graphics quality at the time (reminiscent of “Witchcraft 2”). The highlight of its gameplay system is that although the main frame of the story is simple, it is driven by a puzzle-solving plot, instead of a single-threaded brainless cycle of village-dungeon-village, using mountains, rivers, villages, dungeons, plains and other terrains. A huge open world is formed. In addition, the characters that make up the player team are no longer ordinary avatars and names. During the game, the race and even gender of the characters will affect the game process.

In addition, Canchem’s passionate creativity is also reflected in the vast and boundless worldview construction of the Might and Magic series. Now when it comes to the setting of the world view, what most players may have in mind is the “Japanese” arrangement like A Song of Ice and Fire – one or two continents, an imperial kingdom and a principality, maybe a republic, and then a little nomadic and Oriental style, complete elements, and thin geopolitics. But at that time, the boundaries between European and American fantasy and science fiction were not so clear. At the end of “Genesis”, players rushed into the universe from the world of swords and magic. The same is true for the Might and Magic series, and her background is even broader-the worldview is directly put into the universe, the creation of the player’s planet is actually the creation of a higher civilization, and the villains to be dealt with are also the fallen of higher civilizations. It’s hard not to be addicted to this particular worldview — a sea of ​​stars and seas overlaid on the medieval fantasy of swords and magic. Although the world view in the generation period was not full enough, it was enough to make European and American players with strong brain replenishment ability dream full.

“Might and Magic II” was released under the shadow of the first generation. With the enthusiasm after the success, the improvement of the budget and the rapid development of hardware technology, the picture of the second generation has soared again, and at the same time, a more ambitious project that occupies a large number of pages of the manual has been launched. Storytelling. On the game system, the second generation introduced automatic maps. Although players lost the hard-core experience of drawing maps by themselves, this is obviously a huge improvement. In addition, there is a more realistic adventure experience. For example, during the journey, the members of the team will face birth, old age, sickness and death. As the age grows, the physical attributes will weaken. When the character is 80 years old, he will die silently on a certain night. .

Might and Magic reached its peak in three generations. Players who attach importance to design will always bypass the audio-visual to talk about the mechanism when evaluating the game, but at that time, many players were eclipsed by the audio-visual innovation of this game, such as the novel stronghold occupation mechanism in the game and the well-received rich puzzles. .

The release year of “Might and Magic III: Adventures on the Magic Island” was 1991. She arrived on the PC of the DOS system, not only with colorful pictures, fascinating opening animations, but also character dubbing – able to use the 286 without a sound card Computer speakers for clear vocals. I haven’t cleared Might and Magic III yet, but my inexplicable feelings and this still fresh childhood memory make me always put these 4m files at the bottom of the boxes of various storage devices.

My first contact with Might and Magic was also in the third generation. At that time, the author was still a child and opened the game in the emulator in the corner of the hard disk. Might and Magic III has been completely Chinese, but you can’t ask a primary school student to understand this, and after the baptism of the pirated Diablo 2, I don’t have too many impressions on the pictures of this generation, so I think the colors are quite bright, Unlike those dark things. But with the in-depth understanding of this series, I have paid more and more attention to this game, especially her very design UI, which has led me to have a morbid pursuit of the game’s UI so far.

By the time of the fourth or fifth generation of Might and Magic, the development power of NWC has reached a new peak. The third, fourth, and fifth generations of games were released in the following years and became “New Year’s Goods” – New Year’s Goods with high quality and quantity.

There is a point in the fourth and fifth generations of games that can reflect both creativity and technology. The two generations of games were actually developed at the same time, which may be the reason why the two games do not have a Roman numeral sequence. We can think of the fifth generation as an expansion piece that can run on its own. When you insert the fifth generation game disk when you have the fourth generation in the PC, the installation window will ask you whether to install the content of “Might and Magic: The Dark Lord’s Retaliation” to the “Might and Magic: Nebula Mystery” folder , if you agree, then the two games will be combined into one, presenting a completely different startup interface, giving a brand new title “Might and Magic: The Battle of Nebula World”.

The stories of the fourth and fifth generations take place in the Nebula Realm and the Nether Realm of the Xeen planet where the story is located. When the two generations of games are merged, the map will be connected into one, and there will be a series of additional tasks, and even the name of the final boss will be changed. . This mechanism was an excellent material for writing articles when it relied on paper media. At this moment, the Might and Magic series has reached an extremely prosperous state.

Kanchem’s enthusiasm has always been brimming with enthusiasm. When he was developing the Might and Magic series, he also participated in the design of the universe-themed RPG “Planet’s edge”, and developed the semi-real-time chess game “King’s Bounty”. The latter is the predecessor of Invincible Heroes, and at the same time, it is still an IP with a large fan base today.

However, Canchem chose to sell the company at this time.

This is not because he is going to do cash out, but because he is an excellent game director, but he doesn’t understand things other than development, especially the release of the game – the release of Might and Magic started when the first generation of Might and Magic was released. It bothered him. At that time, NWC, which was so poor, could not afford to distribute by itself and didn’t know how to distribute it. After traveling all over the United States, he couldn’t find a big factory that was willing to lend a helping hand. Activision was able to successfully launch it after begging its father for milk.

In 1993, NWC became a subsidiary of a company called NTN Communications, which was doing bar entertainment at the time (the American bar was inextricably linked with video games at that time). This is not quite the same as an acquisition in the ordinary concept, but more like a “custodial”. But when Canchem had the idea of ​​handing over the business to outside capital, the story might be doomed.

two

In 1994, the Might and Magic series lost the vitality of the previous consecutive New Year’s products, and only released the integrated version of the fourth and fifth generations and an officially supported fan expansion. In the same year, RPG games such as “Final Fantasy 6”, “Shin Megami Tensei 2”, “Warcraft” and “The Elder Scrolls: Arena” were released, while other types of games included “Rockman X”, “Tekken”, “NBA live” and “Need for Speed”. “Released…

Traditional European and American RPGs have been violently killed by Japanese manufacturers in the turn-based field. The emergence of “Final Fantasy 6” is a historic blow. Even if we compare the four or five generations of Might and Magic, which we boast about, it is at most Gain some advantages in the areas of freedom and dubbing. On the European and American side, the popularity of real-time strategy and the emergence of other pioneering games with a higher sense of “cool” have made European and American RPGs become the outcasts of the market for a while.

Against this backdrop, Canchem also felt the pressure to design Might and Magic. Inspired by his previous production of “The King’s Bounty”, he developed the Might and Magic spinoff series, “Might and Magic: Heroes of Might and Magic”.

The first Heroes of Might and Magic was treated very similarly to the first generation of Might & Magic – although it didn’t achieve unprecedented results, it received good reviews and good sales. The following year, 1996, a Heroes of Might and Magic II: Continued Dispute with a higher degree of completion game system and more textured graphics was released.

But it was also this year that the Might and Magic series came to the track of her destiny.

In 1991, EA founder Tripp Hawkins took a fancy to the console market and left the company he founded to start 3DO. However, five years later, in 1996, 3DO’s game console was completely defeated under the full-scale offensive of PS and Saturn. 3DO had to be reorganized and returned to Hawkins’ original old path – becoming a complete game development and publisher.

In 1996, NWC Company was acquired by 3DO Company. In fact, there were no serious economic reasons. NWC was not in danger of being hungry. After the reorganization, 3DO gradually stabilized and released the first 3D MMORPG in history. — Meridian 59. Just because Canchem and Hawkins, who share a high degree of forward-looking vision, need each other – 3DO needs the game signs of Might and Magic and Heroes, Canchem has taken a fancy to the prospect of online games.

This hit-and-run seems wonderful, but unfortunately, it’s not the beginning of a great story. And, when we talk about tragedy, when we talk about Westwood, when we talk about bullfrog, when we talk about Blizzard, when we talk about Maxis, when we talk about rebirth, we can at least witness a honeymoon period. But for NWC, that initial honeymoon period didn’t exist.

Only in the year of the acquisition, after Heroes 2 was released, Canhem and Hawkins diverged in their development ideas. Canchem did not immediately force the birth of “Might and Magic Online”, but hoped that after the two spin-offs, “Might and Magic VI” can be fully developed; and 3DO considerations – it is easy to guess, 3DO wants to Taking advantage of Heroes of Invincibility 2’s big selling wind, immediately launch the expansion to maximize the benefits.

After some expediency, 3DO decided that the development of NWC should still focus on “Might and Magic VI”, while the expansion of Heroes 2 was outsourced to other production teams. The first decision-making disagreement after the acquisition was compromised by entrusting the personal IP.

…Fortunately, high blood pressure did not appear for the time being, and this expansion titled “The Price of Loyalty” was well-made and well-received.

In 1998, Might and Magic VI: Heaven’s Order was released. This new 3D Might & Magic was released after a lapse of 4 years. She has a new look. In addition to using the 3D engine to say goodbye to the grid maze of the previous work, the field of vision can be rotated horizontally without dead ends; The training and combat system has been brought to a new level; the story has also embarked on the Colony planet where the heroic invincible story is located, and entered a new development.

The media at that time used her to compare with games like “The Elder Scrolls: Blade Rain”, which had fewer bugs, better UI design, and higher degrees of freedom [Might and Magic series has always had levitation (flying oddities) The battle system is more in-depth, and is called “the omen of the revival of Western RPGs” by players and the media.

Might and Magic VI is still largely regarded as the pinnacle of the series, although criticism of the dwindling number of puzzles in the sixth generation due to the increased difficulty of development began to emerge after the wave was calm.

In 1999, the domestic limelight even overshadowed the release of Heroes of Might and Magic 3, the masterpiece of Might & Magic’s ongoing war chess game, President Hill. Although Heroes of Invincibility 3 was completed after the release of the expansion titled “Shadow of Death”, the perfect game system, superb art style, top-notch graphics, top-level music production, and fascinating plot development have made it Step into the hall. 3DO was in the limelight for a while – it was sitting on top 3d RPG works and top strategy games at the same time, and only Nintendo and Square had this status in the same period.

On December 20, 3DO took advantage of Christmas to release “Might and Magic: Crusaders” – a third-person action-oriented game. Although the quality of the game was mediocre, it was an exploration of new gameplay after all. A sequel, Might & Magic: Warrior, was also launched. The Might and Magic series has blossomed again.

Everything seems to be developing in a good direction, but if there is no accident, the accident is about to come.

three

Unlike the scenery of Heroes of Invincibility 3, the evaluation of “Might and Magic VII: Blood and Glory” released in the same year was so mediocre. It did not have the game time and depth of the sixth generation. The only thing worth mentioning is that it added a card game. , In the same year, it was dwarfed in front of the exotic requiem surface. When the game entered the 3D era, the difficulty of making New Year games was greatly increased, but 3DO didn’t care, it just continued to deliver new money-making tasks to Might and Magic and Invincible Heroes.

In 2000, Heroes 3 released the expansion Shadow of Death, the second expansion of this work, and logically, a great series should end there. However, in the same year, NWC launched “Heroes of the Invincible Chronicles: God of War in Ruin”, “The Invincible Chronicles: Conquer Hell”, “The Invincible Chronicles: The Fight of the Dragon”, “The Invincible Chronicles: The Tree of the World”, “The Invincible Heroes”: Blazing Planet” and “Heroes of the Invincible Chronicles: Lord of the Elements” are a total of six works. These works can only be called “official maps”, and their game content is completely based on the three generations, and nothing is brought in except for the plot.

In May of the same year, “Might and Magic VIII: Day of the Destroyer” was released, and Might and Magic, which still had its prestige last year, fell into a lot of criticism. This work is still just an old wine in a new bottle on the basis of the sixth generation. Not only does the gameplay remain unchanged, but the plot is inexplicable. The picture that has always been the industry benchmark is also not at the top level of the industry in the past due to the backwardness of the engine. This kind of thing is inevitable, such a onerous and uninteresting development task comes from the parent company 3DO’s finances due to the explosion of the stock market, which makes 3DO order NWC to do everything possible to make money, but at the same time, NWC personnel Cut again and again. It is said that during the worst period, only a dozen staff members could be seen inside the NWC studio.

3DO’s only support for NWC is that it finally satisfies Kanchem’s original intention of bringing Might and Magic to the Internet in a ridiculous place-they moved out the card games in the seventh generation of Might and Magic separately for players to play online. And “Network Genesis”, which is also the sequel to the “three major RPGs”, has been operating for three years at this time.

In 2001, there was no Masaru birth of Might and Magic. However, this year’s Might and Magic series still released three works: “Heroes of Might and Magic: The Final Chapter”, “Heroes of Might and Magic: Dragonbone Staff”, “Legend of Might and Magic”, and “Dragon’s Wrath”.

The first work of “Dragon Bone Staff” was released on the ps2 platform. She has a good expressiveness and has not received enough publicity at all. The semi-finished game experience also makes it difficult for fans who will buy this work.

And “Legend of Might and Magic” is a fully networked FPS, which is completely a ridiculous follow-up work, we will not talk about her gameplay and quality – in 2001, World of Warcraft just filed a case, holding such a The long-standing RPG game series, but let NWC develop a first-person shooter game with little technical reserve?

“Dragon Fury” is also an indescribable third-person shooter. The player drives the dragon to take revenge on the orcs, spit magic while stealing the cows raised by the farmers, and if he dies, there will be an indescribable death screen.

In 2002, Might and Magic IX was released in the same year as Heroes 4, along with the tepid third-person action series “Might and Magic: The Shifter”. The release of two masterpieces under the Might and Magic IP after a year is not because NWC has been holding back for a year, but the parent company’s 3DO is about to die.

The only bright spot of Might and Magic IX is that it becomes the first full 3D work in the main series, and outside it is the “Most Disappointing Work Award” from various reviews. Heroes of Invincible 4 is recognized as a semi-finished product. The unfinished system content of Heroes of Invincibility later released is faster than the game itself. We can see a lot of 3DO checkmates in Heroes 4, the most obvious being the shoddy towns and abrupt map elements, which make this work even less aesthetically pleasing than the first generation – at least the first generation’s 2D style conveys sophistication sense. This is said to be due to financial constraints resulting in too many projects being cut off, leaving too many art scraps, so the waste utilization put them directly into the resources of Heroes of Might and Magic 4.

Heroes 4’s last expansion was released in 2003, and on May 28 of the same year, 3DO went bankrupt, and the toppled building would not bypass anyone who was still in it.

three

After the death of NWC, “King’s Bounty” was bought by Russians who love chess, and the Might and Magic series was taken away by another vampire – Ubisoft took away “Might and Magic” and Heroes of Might and Magic.

Ridiculous French guy, I only need to tell a story to let everyone understand how “skilled” one of the worst game companies in the world is – on the 20th anniversary of the Heroes series, Ubisoft decided to release the most classic hero A screen remake of Invincible 3. This is something worthy of applause and celebration. However, when this work was announced, everyone found out – why is there no most classic Death Shadow expansion in the propaganda?

This is not because Ubisoft wants to make money repeatedly, but because Ubisoft lost the source code of the expansion pack.

However, the ridiculous Frenchman still came up with a complete remake later – it couldn’t be a good story of Remake, nor was it a bad thing about the player community – it was the outsourced studio responsible for porting the mobile version two years later. The complete source code of the expansion was found on their hard drive over there…

Don’t be in a hurry to complain, there are still French jokes.

For example, after Ubisoft got Might and Magic, the first thing about development was to hand over to Gameloft to make Might and Magic Mobile Edition in Java.

However, there is still a honeymoon period between Heroes and Ubisoft. The development of Heroes 5 was handed over to the passionate Russian studio Nival. Today, with the decline of war chess games, there are still many heroic competitions between Chinese and Russian players. Players from the two countries have a love for this type of game that is unmatched by other countries.

Nival Studio has brought a full 3D main city with a shocking look and feel to the six camps, and upgraded the function of rotating display to show its gorgeousness; at the same time, it has designed an unprecedented complex skill system for the heroes. , Occupational influence adds depth and degree of use, and simplifies skills such as navigation that have a low sense of presence in the previous work. The only two shortcomings of Heroes of Invincible 5 at the time were that the player configuration was overwhelmed like the 3rd generation, each computer round in the later stage was long enough to go back and forth to the toilet, and the balance was slightly poor, so the values ​​had to be optimized in the subsequent dlc. with increased limits.

In short, Heroes of Might and Magic 5 has brought an exciting rain to Heroes of Invincible players after years of haze. This game has been praised as much as the third generation. It got 350,000 copies in 2006 a month after its release, and it once became the best-selling game in Germany, Britain, and France.

In October of the same year, Ubisoft was able to cooperate with Valve and outsourced Arkane to use the Source engine to produce a first-person action game “Might and Magic: Dark Messiah”. At that time, Arkane was still a small studio with no representative works, but this work still received more praise than criticism for its good gameplay.

After this great success, Ubisoft will strike while the iron is hot to bring Might and Magic’s IP to the top again – this is impossible.

After this great success, in addition to continuing to commission Nival to produce expansions, Ubisoft also developed “Might and Magic: Heroes of Might and Magic mini”. The “mini” is a very confusing suffix, but the simple explanation is: Heroes of Might and Magic Web.

This web version has long since cancelled the domain name, and the relationship between Nival and Ubisoft has become more and more tense, eventually ending the cooperation between the two parties.

In the five years since then, no Might & Magic or Heroes of Might and Magic works have appeared. The core of Ubisoft’s development in the Heroes Invincible series is to continue to do web games. In 2008, he authorized a domestic company in China to produce “Heroes Online”, and the following year he personally developed “Might and Magic: Kingdom of Heroes”, which is also a web version of Heroes. What’s even more ridiculous is that due to the good quality of the domestic hero Invincible online and its understanding of the market, this work developed by Ubisoft Chengdu was easily defeated, and it was finally shut down hastily.

For the prefix “Might and Magic”, Ubisoft made a little effort. However, the Dark Messiah sequel, also developed by Arkane: “Might and Magic: Dark Messiah: Elements”, has received bad reviews. It was released on the nds platform, and the cartoon-style puzzle game “Might and Magic: Heroes” won the fourth annual sales of the nds. The nds masterpiece that year included Pokémon and The Legend of Zelda. new work included.

In 2011, perhaps it was the success of the Assassin’s Creed II trilogy that gave Ubisoft some leisure and elegance, and the page game series Heroes of Invincibility was finally thought of again. And this development directly destroyed a game studio.

Due to the conflict, Nival Studios broke away from all development of Heroes, and Ubisoft turned to a studio called Black Hole Entertainment. The studio had only two representative works before, but the quality was good, including a real-time strategy game of Warhammer. On the tenth anniversary of their studio, Ubisoft handed over a group of players with tricky tastes behind them, and the development task of Heroes of Might and Magic 5 was ahead, and Black Hole Entertainment was flattered.

However, the Black Hole Studio, which is ready to develop a Heroes of Invincible 6 that is at least not dwarfed by the fifth generation, gets it, but it is not much better than the budget of the page game. In Ubisoft’s mind, 3d main city? 6 camps? All rejected. The main city interface of Heroes Invincible 6 has returned to the 2d style. The main body has only five factions, and the last one will be introduced in the dlc.

But Black Hole Studios never got the chance to develop the DLC for this work. Ubisoft’s requirements are already so low, and the budget it gives is not even enough to support the development of such a game that is already full of compromises. On top of that, Ubisoft even delayed the delivery of the set budget! At the same time, Ubisoft continued to intervene in the production and command in every possible way before the game was released. If it all goes with it, then the finished Heroes 6 will be engraved with a pillar of shame, and Black Hole doesn’t want that to happen.

Ubisoft’s behavior is like a scheming eunuch in the palace, giving the seemingly sweet and delicious piston to the lower-level personnel who are showing signs of upward development. If this person can’t do what he wants, it means that the person’s own ability is insufficient. ; If this person achieves his goal, he will also pay countless prices and fall into the abyss.

The infamy brought by a low-quality work is nothing to a big company like Ubisoft, which has no face and no skin, but for an independent company that obtains projects and funds through industry reputation and longs for its own masterpiece one day Development studio, how could a black hole let its reputation shatter like this?

Therefore, at the end of the development of Black Hole Studio, Black Hole has entered the stage of backward development. When Heroes of Invincible 6 was released, Black Hole Studio had been tortured to the point of last breath.

And what about Ubisoft?

Heroes of Invincibility 6 failed. Ubisoft’s statement is that this work was developed by an outsourced studio and has nothing to do with Ubisoft headquarters. As for reposting the game? This is the black hole voluntarily~

Ah yes, it is written in the contract that Black Hole can only receive the commission fee when Heroes 6 sells 2 million copies at full price.

Ten months later, Black Hole Studios, whose cash flow collapsed, went bankrupt.

The appearance of Heroes of Invincible 6 is actually excellent. After all, it has been separated from the previous generation for five years. The new and careful art elements make its visual effects other than the main city interface better than the fifth generation; although the newly remodeled game mechanism is not perfect. , but it’s fresh. It’s just that the first impression can’t make up for the players’ criticism of the many bugs in the game that the black hole has been unable to repair, it can’t make up for the shrinking volume of only five camps, and it can’t make up for the players’ memory filter as thick as a barrier.

After this big failure, Ubisoft did not hide Might and Magic again, because it took a fancy to the card game market – this is quite forward-looking behavior, “Might and Magic: Champions Showdown” was released only a year after the release. Some Hearthstone legends. It’s just that a good deck of cards was played sloppy, and the game was shut down in 2016.

This Game Day had a bit of a boost in 2014, with the release of Might and Magic X: Legacy. This work was handed over to Limbic Studio, the development studio of the two dlcs of Heroes of Invincible 6. The budget is also low to the naked eye. Even if the gameplay is not bad, as a 2014 game, the textures are not even as good as the Elder Scrolls in 2006. 4. The UI texture only has the advantage of resolution in front of the page game legend. The only luck is that on the Internet at this time, there are still heroes of Might and Magic players, but the fans of the Might and Magic series are already fewer than the sturgeon in the Yangtze River.

Limbic is also the developer of Heroes of Invincibility 7. Compared to Black Hole, Limbic is a smart studio. After Heroes of Invincible 6 has killed all players’ hopes, their development pressure is not so great, and the budget is still as small. In the design of the game mechanism, Limbic listened to the opinions of the players, and made all the favorite content in one pot. The gameplay is quite high. When I am pulling people into the pit, I generally do not recommend the most classic and still excellent graphics Heroes of Might and Magic 3, but this for Heroes of Might and Magic 7.

The biggest flaw of Heroes of Invincibility 7 is its art. While inheriting a lot of art resources from the previous generation, its main city still has few animations, which is enough to see the low budget.

But even if the gameplay is guaranteed, the sales volume of Heroes 7 is still so rudimentary. After the release of the catastrophic dlc, there is no news of Might & Magic and Heroes.

If it is pure snow, it would be better, at least not to be tortured. However, Ubisoft’s attitude towards this IP is, “Although we don’t want to do it with our heart, we want to do it”, and it is especially concerned about web games . Ubisoft launched “M&M Heroes online” in 2014 after its homepage game was defeated by Heroes of M&M online – an act of naming its own game like a piece of porcelain It is really speechless.

In addition, Ubisoft has also developed mobile games “Might and Magic: Guardians of the Elements”, “Heroes of Might and Magic: Age of War”, the strategy board game “Might and Magic: Showdown”, and the dark-like game “Might and Magic: Heralds” “(This work is stillborn).

On this day in 2022, only Heroes 7 and two mobile games still have official servers running.

Epilogue

In 2018, there were incidents of people encouraging Ubisoft to resist the hostile takeover of Vivendi, the parent company of Activision Blizzard. At that time, I was biting my teeth and eager to see Ubisoft go to a bad ending. The sins of capital are vividly reflected in the development history of the old IPs in the game industry. Ubisoft, EA, 3DO, Activision… How many corpses are lying behind these big factories, Ubisoft and Vivendi are only in size difference.

As for Might and Magic, my regret is not that it cannot return to its former glory, nor that it can no longer play the latest sequel, but that she was kidnapped by capital and produced so many low-quality products in the course of her life. content. And the anger at the ruthless oppression and even bankruptcy of those studios full of passion and love.

Anyway, my story is over. As for Might and Magic, as the former king of RPGs, today she is almost drained of blood and cannot usher in a proud demise.

This article is reproduced from: https://www.yystv.cn/p/9670
This site is for inclusion only, and the copyright belongs to the original author.