Heroes of Might and Magic IV

As the fourth installment of the series, Heroes of Might and Magic IV brings many new features to the game while retaining the old interface design and gameplay.

The game still is about exploring huge maps with heroes and armies, collecting treasures, building up cities, fighting monsters and defeating foes. There are six new and large campaigns and 24 single scenarios to play, all set in the Axeoth world to which many have escaped after the world-ending disaster in Enroth known as the Reckoning, shortly after the events of Heroes Chronicles: The Sword of Frost.

Towns and interracial alliances have been redone. Units are now split to 4 levels, with each town having two buildable unit types per level; however, after the first level, each town has to decide which dwelling to construct, discarding the other unless another town of the same type is found. Towns now also have caravan buildings, which can transfer units and resources between towns and allied players. Individual units can now traverse the map without heroes (including neutral ones, if such a setting is enabled), and heroes who perish in battle can be resurrected if their body is taken to a friendly town, while those who are defeated by an enemy player can be taken to a prison.

The game is now entirely displayed in an isometric view, and the battlefield is split to small square tiles instead of large hexes. Heroes fight side by side with other units and are used for combat as if they were a standard unit, which restricts their spellcasting only to times when it is their turn. However, multiple heroes can be present in a single unit stack. Heroes no longer have individual specialties, and only differ in town allegiances and whether they specialize in might or magic - towns of similar affinities can hire heroes from neighboring towns in an affinity graph, with the exception of Stronghold (Might) which can hire might heroes of any faction but never magic ones, as they do not have access to a magic guild.

As before, the game can be played in hot seat mode with other players, and comes with a map editor. Post-launch updates have added online multiplayer capabilities.