Heroes of Might and Magic IV

The fourth Heroes of Might and Magic, released in 2002, remains the most argued-over entry in the series. New World Computing, publishing through The 3DO Company, rewrote several rules that the celebrated third game had established. Heroes were no longer commanders sitting outside the fight handing out bonuses; they walked onto the battlefield as full combat units and could be killed there. Armies could march without a hero at all, and a stack of heroes alone could function as a strike force, which changed the rhythm of a campaign considerably. Caravans arrived to shuttle recruits between towns, character classes emerged from combinations of magic schools, and each town forced a choice between two mutually exclusive creature branches, so no single playthrough covered everything on offer. Visually the game moved away from the crisp painted isometric look towards softer, more detailed scenery, a change plenty of players read as a downgrade. The technical launch was rough: the engine ran slower than a turn-based strategy had any business running, and several systems only settled down across the expansions. Veterans arriving straight from the third game usually complain about broken balance. Taken on its own terms, the fourth game offers an inventive campaign structured around individual hero stories and a genuine willingness to break its own formula, which is rarer than it sounds in a long-running series. Both single-player and multiplayer are supported. It is worth your time mainly if you are curious about the road the series briefly took before the fifth instalment steered back to safer ground.