Key Preview Takeaways:
- The graphics are entirely new, but the underlying classic gameplay has been preserved.
- The UI has also being redone, bringing it up to modern standards from its MS-DOS-era origins.
- The remake awesomely supports all of the old original and community-made maps.
In a year where Ubisoft announced and shipped the Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag remake, a revival of Heroes of Might and Magic 3 might not be the highest-profile remake project, but it’s an appreciated one nevertheless. While the announcement did not mince words about the scope and scale of the project — the 1999 title is being brought back to life for both PC and consoles — IGN got to go hands on with the game in a remote session to see how this version compares to the nearly three-decades-old original.
For the uninitiated, Heroes of Might and Magic is a strategy game series where players take on the roles of factions that guide armies into battles on an overworld map. Each faction, led by a Hero, explores a map with multiple points of interest, recruiting new soldiers, gaining resources, and eventually clashing with enemy troops. In those clashes, players move their units around a side-view battlefield broken into hexagonal panels and fight to be the last group standing for their hero.
All this gameplay is intact in the remake, making Heroes of Might and Magic III feel like the classic that fans have known and loved over the last few decades with a new coat of paint. Though Heroes of Might and Magic III was remastered by Ubisoft a decade ago, the 2026 title is a true top-to-bottom remake of the game in terms of visuals, while leaving the gameplay relatively untouched.
The modern 3D graphics are bolstered by a modern user interface revamp that does not entirely ditch the MS-DOS look of the classic games but instead evokes them as the foundation for new art and menus to be built upon. That is to say, the remake does not throw away what fans liked about the earlier game, but definitely tries to make things more readable. There is nowhere this is more obvious than the base-building screen, where the brand-new art no longer has you scanning the screen for the window of the base you’re looking to upgrade, and is at a glance more easy to see and decode for people who have not memorized the layout yet.
In the demo, we were given access to two different maps. The first, a campaign tutorial map titled The Queen’s Departure, teaches players about the basics of Heroes of Might and Magic III’s core systems of movement and battle through the story of a queen leaving her kingdom after her father’s death. She and her retinue battle back bandits on the way to the port, but it’s the surprise attack from demons that truly catches her party off guard.
The other map, Arrogance, is a classic scenario from the original game separate from the campaign that has gained a well-loved reputation among fans. This map has multiple factions warring over a number of towns and shipyards for supremacy in the region. The map design discourages rushing with its layout and lets players dive into subterranean layers for resources, so it has remained popular due to its complexity and variation.
While it is somewhat accurate to say that Heroes of Might and Magic III is being brought back from the dead, it is also worth acknowledging that it has never really disappeared. A dedicated community of players has been playing and creating maps for it for a quarter-century, and Ubisoft says that the company has been involving key members of the community in the creation of the remake.
The reason that bears mentioning is that Heroes of Might and Magic III Remake supports all those old maps from the jump, letting maps like Arrogance live again in 2026. The remake scans the topography and design of the original maps, both from the campaign and from fans, and recreates it in 3D with modern graphics. The map and campaign editors will ship with HOMM3R at release.
Within Arrogance, I managed to — true to its name — work myself into scenarios where I thought I was winning only to be rightfully cowed by enemy armies. On my first try, I was too slow to deal with some enemy monsters guarding a nearby castle town, and by the time I finally cleared the way and took over the town, a rival kingdom had already built ships and invaded my coast. My units were not nearly strong enough to take them on and I had to slowly watch while they took over every resource on the way to eliminating my faction from the map.
The second time around, speed was my aspiration, so I used a faction of mages to build and expand as fast as humanly possible. This plan worked better, at least until a nearby contingent of Griffins ran roughshod over my units, leaving me vulnerable to enemies until I retreated into an underground lair of the undead. The demo ended before I could find out what backing myself into this particular pincer attack would earn me, but maybe that’s for the best.
Between the various efforts to bring Heroes of Might and Magic to modern audiences and this latest remake to bridge the gap with classic fans, it is a good time to be an enthusiast of the strategy series. With Heroes of Might and Magic III coming to consoles, perhaps it will also find a new audience of players who will discover what players in 1999 and since have known all along: that this has always been a fantastic strategy series.
While you’re here, check out these previews of other big upcoming games we’ve played recently!
Ryan McCaffrey is IGN’s executive editor of previews and host of IGN’s weekly Xbox show, Podcast Unlocked, and a co-host of Next-Gen Console Watch. He’s a North Jersey guy, so it’s “Taylor ham,” not “pork roll.” Debate it with him on Twitter at @DMC_Ryan.
