| Early teaser demo of Heroes 1 lost to time | |
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Blake00
Known Hero
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posted May 04, 2026 07:24 AM |
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Edited by Blake00 at 07:26, 04 May 2026.
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Early teaser demo of Heroes 1 lost to time
Hi guys,
The folks running the Heroes3WOG groups recently posted a really cool reel on their facebook of a Heroes of Might & Magic 1 early teaser demo. It appears to be on rails and much earlier than the the more polished Heroes 1 demo I played back in the day on a PC Gamer CD which kicked off my love of this series. I can see early beta graphics and all sorts of interesting differences.
The video reel: https://www.facebook.com/reel/2468048263712720
I'd love a copy of it but couldn't find a download for it on their site and when I emailed them they sadly couldn't find the files anymore (apparently the video was filmed ages ago), so did a google search for it and all I could find was this forum convo from 2012:
https://www.betaarchive.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=24000
Which references an original post on another forum here:
http://www.classicdosgames.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=3401#p3401
Both reference a long gone "netload" download and sadly Web Archive did not backup the download either.
If anyone has a copy of it please let me know. I can give you a link to some cloud storage to drag and drop it onto and then I can put the file on Internet Archive to ensure it's not lost forever.
Obviously most people would consider on on-rails demo of some ancient game not very interesting, but I'm big on preserving lost things relating to my favourite games (eg I've been rescuing thousands of lost Civilization 2 scenarios over the last few years) and I'm a huge HoMM1 fan and still nostalgically play it every few years despite the sequels being obviously superior. I'm also the creator of the Heroes of Might & Magic 2 mod for Civilization 2 & it's HoMM1 addon which for the addon was a bit of a struggle to find enough good HoMM1 big images to use (due to it's lack of cutscenes compared to HoMM2 onwards) and while I managed and got it done, I'm still very curious to get my hands on more HoMM1 art style stuff and can see this demo contained a decent amount of art that didn't make it into the final game!
So I'm very much hoping I can get my hands on a copy to explore and preserve for all! 
Early art example from the demo video:
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Blake's Sanctum - Heroes of Might & Magic: fan page containing pictures, vids, info, similar games & fan projects!
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Blake00
Known Hero
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posted May 04, 2026 10:58 AM |
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Edited by Blake00 at 14:39, 04 May 2026.
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AlexSpl
Responsible
Supreme Hero
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posted May 04, 2026 10:03 PM |
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Edited by AlexSpl at 22:08, 04 May 2026.
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Yeah, there were times with no Heroes and no Internet. How did humans even survive those ancient times? 
I think, it was 2012 when I first ran into this version. The image to the right of the castle represents all the sleepless nights spent and all the flawless battles won
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Blake00
Known Hero
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posted May 15, 2026 06:41 AM |
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Edited by Blake00 at 06:43, 15 May 2026.
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haha yup I like how moody it is.. I've always loved the distant background stuff in the battle backgrounds and now in this extended shot.. just screens adventure and danger.. you can see the faint blue outlines of strange rib cage like formations and a mysterious dark castle in the mountains..
I used to the love the heroes 1 swamp battle background that had water dripping down the trees.. the lava one was moody as hell but I think my favourite was the special graveyard one that you only saw when attacking graveyards. Who would have thought that yellow would work lol.. yet somehow it does and looks moody as hell like something out of Tim Burton film!
and don't even get me started on my love of the atmospheric castle screens hahaha.. the sparkling night sky in the warlock.. the beautiful green valleys and hills in the knight.. and all the animating creatures near their dwellings that brought the castles to life.. all of that was lost in all the sequels.. which is why I'm so happy Olden Era has brought some of that back!
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Blake's Sanctum - Heroes of Might & Magic: fan page containing pictures, vids, info, similar games & fan projects!
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zydar
Adventuring Hero
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posted May 17, 2026 05:32 AM |
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Blake00
Known Hero
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posted July 25, 2026 08:27 AM |
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Damn right!
Oh and I recently told the guy behind the FirstHoMM - Heroes 1 Rebuild Project about getting my hands on this very early on rails demo of Heroes 1 and how it has an extended intro/title sequence and some early alt assets. He excitedly analysed its files and found extra animation frames to use and even plans to possibly use the extended intro too!
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Blake's Sanctum - Heroes of Might & Magic: fan page containing pictures, vids, info, similar games & fan projects!
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