Heroes Chronicles

Heroes Chronicles is an episodic series of level packs for Heroes of Might and Magic III, a turn-based strategy video game. Eight installments were released from September 2000 to June 2001, developed by Jon Van Caneghem through New World Computing and published by the 3DO Company. Heroes Chronicles tells the story of Tarnum, a barbarian judged unworthy of Paradise due to his crimes. He is made immortal and sent through time by the Ancestors to aid in various quests as punishment.

Intended for newcomers to the franchise, they are low difficulty campaigns that were marketed at a reduced price, and do not require the original game to play. Two of the Chronicles chapters- The World Tree and The Fiery Moon, were freely available as downloads from the 3DO website at the time, to players who already owned a number of the commercially released chapters. Chronicles' reception was mixed as it was perceived as a cash-grab, and lacked the main game's multiplayer support. The complete series was re-released through GOG.com in June 2011.

Gameplay

Heroes Chronicles releases are essentially stand-alone level packs which run on the Heroes III engine, and feature the same turn-based strategy gameplay. Each chapter features eight maps, except for the downloadable episodes The World Tree and The Fiery Moon, which had five. The maps are connected together into campaigns with some short CG cutscenes and a linking narrative. Chronicles was intended to introduce a new audience to the franchise, and on that basis the installments are fairly short with a low difficulty. The general gameplay is unchanged from Heroes III with its expansions, though without multiplayer support.

Plot

The first chapter Warlords of the Wasteland covers Tarnum's origin story as a barbarian king revolting against the Bracaduun wizards who dominate his people. While he is victorious, Tarnum is paranoid and slaughters many innocents as well as those who followed him. He is ultimately brought down by Rion Gryphonheart, King of Erathia, but the Ancestors judge him unworthy of Paradise. In Conquest of the Underworld, Rion's soul is stolen from Paradise, and so the Ancestors punish Tarnum by resurrecting him and sending him on a quest to retrieve the soul from the Underworld. Tarnum adopts the mantle of a knight as he aids Queen Allison in this venture, and in the end rescues her.

In Master of the Elements, the 10,000 year truce with the Elemental Lords expires and Tarnum is sent to take the fight to them in the elemental planes. In order to face the elementals, Tarnum must work with and eventually become a wizard, despite his hatred of the craft. He fights the elemental lords on their home planes and ultimately pursues and defeats them back in Antagarich.

"Revolt of the Beastmasters" details the creation of the Fortress faction of Heroes of Might and Magic III, and the two downloadable titles "The World Tree" and "The Fiery Moon" are a continuous storyline in which Tarnum must stop the mad Ancestor Vorr. The fourth and the last installments, "Clash of the Dragons" and "The Sword of Frost," serve as sequels to Heroes of Might and Magic III: Armageddon's Blade and set up the events leading to Heroes of Might and Magic IV, where Tarnum reappears.

Release and format

Warlords of the Wasteland, Conquest of the Underworld, Masters of the Elements and Clash of the Dragons were retail releases sold individually, generally at about half the price of the original game. The discs also include sample maps from the other installments- which were billed as "interactive trailers". They were released in two batches, with the first two in September, and the second two in November of 2000.

The World Tree and The Fiery Moon were downloadable chapters and not sold on discs. Both were both made available in late 2000 alongside the batches of retail releases- The World Tree releasing the same week as the first set, and The Fiery Moon releasing alongside the second set. These chapters were freely available from the Chronicles website, however they required the target computer to have some of the retail packs already installed. The World Tree required any two retail packs, while The Fiery Moon requried any three on the target system. The installers were only compatible with the US version of the games, which meant that they were not playable outside of that territory. They also required one of the discs from the earlier packs to be in the disc drive to run. The website indicated the chapters would only be available until January 28, 2001, however the files remained available after the deadline expired. A notice was added to the page stating that "The official download deadline has passed, but we're leaving these files up for an indeterminate time as a courtesy to our fans." They remained available until 3DO collapsed in 2003 and the website went down.

The seventh and eighth chapters, Revolt of the Beastmasters and The Sword of Frost, were bundled together and sold as The Final Chapters on a single disc in June 2001. The Chronicles campaigns were not among the content included in Heroes of Might and Magic III: Complete, which released on November 17, 2000. At that stage only six of the eight Chronicles campaigns had launched, some of them only days earlier.

All eight chapters were re-released through GOG.com on June 23, 2011, with the pack simply labeled as All Chapters. The GOG re-release did not have the same regional requirements for The World Tree and The Fiery Moon, which made those playable for the first time outside of the United States.

Chapters

The chapters were not originally given a formal order; this was unclear at the time given that the series involves time travel. The numbering in the table below reflects the 2011 GOG re-release, which places the downloadable chapters after the first four retail discs, rather than adhering strictly to release order.

No.	Name	Release date	Original format
1	Warlords of the Wasteland	September 27, 2000	Individual retail
2	Conquest of the Underworld
3	Masters of the Elements	November 14, 2000
4	Clash of the Dragons
5	The World Tree	September 29, 2000	Free download
6	The Fiery Moon	November 13, 2000Template:Efn
7	Revolt of the Beastmasters	June 1, 2001	Retail, bundled as The Final Chapters
8	The Sword of Frost

Reception

Reception was generally mixed. While the gameplay was still the same good standard Heroes III was known for, critics described the level pack series as a cash grab or rip-off, criticising the lack of new gameplay features. At the time, the Complete version of Heroes III offered significantly more content for the price of two Chronicles chapters. The Spanish language game magazine Extreme PC reviewed the first four chapters and gave the series 79%, citing the loss of multiplayer support.

External links

• Template:Trim The Heroes Chronicles series at MobyGames