| Heroes 3 Remake |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 3 4 · «PREV / NEXT» |
|
DarkAtom
Known Hero
|
posted August 27, 2026 01:42 PM |
|
Edited by DarkAtom at 13:42, 27 Aug 2026.
|
Olegmods said:
Tbh, the Steam H3 Complete release is a whole different topic.
Apparently (after they did get it working), it doesn't work with HD mod if you try to connect the Complete exe from Steam to it, due to being recompiled and apparently encrypted.
You're right, but I didn't think this deserves its own thread. It's somewhat related, though, because they announced this release together with the H3 Remake trailer as an "appetizer".
Quote:
due to being recompiled
This is interesting, didn't they say when they released HDE that the expansions weren't included because they didn't have the original source code? Would this mean they got it back?
|
|
Olegmods
Adventuring Hero
Wrath of the Creators lead dev
|
|
posted August 27, 2026 01:56 PM |
|
|
DarkAtom said:
Olegmods said:
due to being recompiled
This is interesting, didn't they say when they released HDE that the expansions weren't included because they didn't have the original source code? Would this mean they got it back?
Can't say for sure, apparently either it was a fake story to only sell RoE in HDE (I doubt that, but that version exists) or they got the code from that third party source that was like an NWC contractor that made Mac stuff?
But yeah, Ubi now certainly do have the code. Personally to me that brings the question: why did they not decide to update HDE with the DLCs? As far as I know it was highly requested by Steam people.
|
|
DarkAtom
Known Hero
|
|
posted August 27, 2026 02:02 PM |
|
Edited by DarkAtom at 14:17, 27 Aug 2026.
|
Quote:
why did they not decide to update HDE with the DLCs
You have to spend money to make all the expansion sprites in HD (either by paying people or AI tokens). Since it's almost guranteed that any DLC to HDE will make basically no money, it doesn't make sense.
Also, merging the codebase is not exactly easy. HDE is based on RoE 1.2, but there were many changes to the code in AB 2.0/RoE 1.3. You would have to rebase the HDE changes onto SoD in the absence of modern version control.
|
|
EvilP
Promising
Known Hero
|
|
posted August 27, 2026 02:04 PM |
|
|
DarkAtom said:
This is interesting, didn't they say when they released HDE that the expansions weren't included because they didn't have the original source code? Would this mean they got it back?
Fanstratics newsletter #36
Quote:
HoMM3 Question: Heroes III HD ended up being a significant disappointment for me on the iPad for the following reasons.It was only ever the basic game, NOT the expansions too.This struck me as an incredibly stupid and disappointing move, since Heroes III Complete was long established and very well supported by third party maps.At the time, it seemed to me that it was simply money-grabbing, but later, someone (you?!) said they thought that the expansions weren't made HD because Ubisoft had lost the original resources.(Even if that were true, I'd have hoped that something could be done.)
HoMM3 HD was released in late January, 2015.At this time, to my understanding, the source code for the subsequent expansions (AB, SOD, Complete, etc.), was lost.I asked around, looking for a copy, but unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on your point of view, everyone was honorable and did not steal any NWC code.Later, it was brought to my attention, a programmer named John Morris, claimed he had a copy of the source from doing Macintosh ports of HoMM3 and HoMM3 Complete. This was from a Twitter post in October 2017. Later, in March of 2019, he also stated he had FTP’d the source to UbiSoft, but had heard nothing from them since. So, according to John’s account, UbiSoft has all the source code.
~
____________
|
|
Popcioslav
Hired Hero
The best H4 unit
|
|
posted August 27, 2026 04:27 PM |
|
|
Okay what is that and how come no one mentioned this under new Castle's promo screenshots:
And stuff like Centaur's Stable having its entrances turn into windows
Or the bridge in Conflux on bottom left instead of leading to Capitol to lead to a nowhere, a bush void, a separate island? idk
(Yes, I know that's Conflux from HoTA but that issue wasn't there in the OG anyways)
They also tried to handwave they might've used generative AI, as seen here https://youtu.be/SlWMoybAf1Y they instead just did a not best job or something? I see, thank you Saar.
This is just emberassing for everyone included. Good to know this stain will forever remain on this title. At this point I'd rather go back to the times when everyone assumed this series is dead, that we'll never get Factory for HoTA and all that. I feel embarassed to be a fan of this series and be a part of the cattle that will inevitably buy this remake despite this shoddy work that even fans without getting paid would do better. And don't even get me started on the bland milktoast OST played in trailers, because I highly doubt the new "devs" even attempted to contact Paul Anthony Romero (or Heroes Orchestra or Rob King if you think I'm glazing him, which imho said glaze is still deserved) despite him being on good terms with almost any fan and responding and doing projects with them.
I wouldn't trust this company to even keep track of just rereleases, because in fact they fumbled that one too.
In fact it still had 20% approval during those first hours. People (which hopefuly included reviewbots brought by Ubisoft) bought the game, downloaded it, realized they can't play it and still rated it positively. Amazing, just, amazing. Bring me Sword of Frost and Armageddon's Blade because I want to get off this planet and go to Axeoth already (which remake of would've been way more positively, as long as it's not Ubisoft just leaving quality control to machine.)
|
|
Charrclaw
Known Hero
|
|
posted August 28, 2026 02:59 PM |
|
|
LordCameron said:
I'm continuing to get the feeling Ubisoft has no idea why people like Homm3.
That said, they should have remade 4, 5, or even 7 in this style and it would have probably been a decent upgrade.
I'd rather they redo six and forget 7 ever existed. It was such a great evolution of RPG aspect of Heroes games.
|
|
BigPig2
Adventuring Hero
|
|
posted August 29, 2026 12:34 PM |
|
|
Ubisoft owns the IP and they will do whatever they want with it. And that means whatever sells. A whole lot of boomers will buy the remake out of nostalgia even if they never play it more than once or twice. Plus, the legendary status of H3 will help sell the game to the current generation of casual players.
On the other hand, well done, the remake has the potential to bring some players under the age of 40 to the community. Modern visuals will also make the game more entertaining to watch for at least some audiences.
I think the constructive thing to do is to engage with and lobby Ubi for maximum modability, cross-play, the most obvious bug fixes and minimal changes otherwise, as the variety of mods shows just how little agreement there is on "balance" etc. As i understand they are present on HC already?
|
|
DarkAtom
Known Hero
|
|
posted August 30, 2026 03:49 AM |
|
Edited by DarkAtom at 03:53, 30 Aug 2026.
|
While this will probably be controversial, I need to say it: if it's not a 100% loyal replica like HD Edition (meaning there are any differences in mechanics), they should take the time to rebalance the game. If the game is to be playable in multiplayer, it should at least look at what HD Mod does for SoD multiplayer (the HW rulez patch). But I would go as far as to completely rebalance Cloak of the Undead King, DD/Fly/TP and the other stuff that's broken.
Although mods can customize the gameplay for every player's liking, in multiplayer you need a single ruleset that everybody agrees on. I think this should come out of the box without requiring community patching.
|
|
kesnarii
Hired Hero
|
|
posted August 30, 2026 10:41 AM |
|
|
Seeing more and more of the shared content one word comes to my mind:
S O U L L E S S
It really feels very uninspired.... Like someone having been assigned to redo homm3 and not really loving it...
|
|
MattII
Legendary Hero
|
|
posted August 30, 2026 11:22 AM |
|
Edited by MattII at 11:33, 30 Aug 2026.
|
Urgh, not a fan of most of the adventure map stuff. Once again, Ubisoft has proven they don't understand the fact that the heroes are merely representations of their armies, not the armies in themselves, hence why they towers over everything. Plus, a lot of the objects look just plain weird. Did they not realise the original game's top-down oblique projection would make directly porting the objects to a 3D map a damn mess?
In other news, here's a playtest (not by me): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-B5kfxCtm8
|
|
purerogue3
Famous Hero
|
|
posted August 30, 2026 04:54 PM |
|
|
It sounds like an experiment to see what the Chinese can come up with.
I am more repulsed by OE.
This doesn't contain anything that gives me an adverse reaction, however seeing the demo being played it seems no different from OE so it's basically just another take on ('mobile game') version that this generation is capable of producing.
And Van Caneghem is just sitting their like an idiot - if I had a spare ten million
|
|
niven
Hired Hero
Lord Niven(cz)
|
|
posted August 31, 2026 11:32 PM |
|
|
Heroes 3 remake will be absolutely best what can coming!!! Diablo, Warcraft 3, Gothic and more more games have remake and always everybody play just remake never old game!
Iam too happy for new game! Best forever Heroes 3!!!! With remake!
|
|
Olegmods
Adventuring Hero
Wrath of the Creators lead dev
|
|
posted August 31, 2026 11:35 PM |
|
|
niven said:
Heroes 3 remake will be absolutely best what can coming!!! Diablo, Warcraft 3, Gothic and more more games have remake and always everybody play just remake never old game!
Iam too happy for new game! Best forever Heroes 3!!!! With remake!
The games you mention (at least WC and Diablo) are rather remasters, AFAIK.
|
|
Elvin
Admirable
Omnipresent Hero
Endless Revival
|
|
posted September 02, 2026 01:13 PM |
|
|
Ubi being out of touch with reality is nothing new.
The reveal trailer has more dislikes than likes and the gameplay trailer dislikes are catching up with the likes. That's just sad. They said they are faithful but what they meant was keeping the original balance which is long outdated and full of issues. At least it seems like they might be adding optional hota rebalancing. If the goal is the new audience, what can I say, good luck. But I find the notion that the game required a different artstyle to sell in 2026 simply ridiculous, especially when their vision for the visuals looks pretty much like AI. I do not see the appeal of 1999 gameplay dressed up in AI artstyle, less readable map, worse UI and worse hiring/building screens.
They could do worse, they could do better. Wake me up if they introduce new campaigns or factions.. 
____________
For H5 and Olden Era, join the Heroes Tactical Duels discord server!
H5 Duel Map hosted on Moddb
|
|
Centurion
Adventuring Hero
|
|
posted September 02, 2026 11:47 PM |
|
|
Elvin said:
Ubi being out of touch with reality is nothing new.
The reveal trailer has more dislikes than likes and the gameplay trailer dislikes are catching up with the likes. That's just sad. They said they are faithful but what they meant was keeping the original balance which is long outdated and full of issues. At least it seems like they might be adding optional hota rebalancing. If the goal is the new audience, what can I say, good luck. But I find the notion that the game required a different artstyle to sell in 2026 simply ridiculous, especially when their vision for the visuals looks pretty much like AI. I do not see the appeal of 1999 gameplay dressed up in AI artstyle, less readable map, worse UI and worse hiring/building screens.
They could do worse, they could do better. Wake me up if they introduce new campaigns or factions..
I hope they focus as much on updating the quality of life and balance as they do on the graphics. Sounds like they're hesitant to do any balance changes, but the balance in the original is not good. The gameplay of Heroes 3, the variety of strategies and factions and things to discover are what made it great to me. HOTA has greatly improved on these things and the overall balance.
I've always enjoyed the look of Heroes 3, but I'm cautiously optimistic the remake will have good art too. From what I've seen it's all decent, but everything about Inferno and some map objects need quality control. I don't care if AI is used as long as the product is excellent.
Overall I'm happy with the announce. Would be cool to get more new players and the more they implement HOTAs balance/QoL changes the better. Sounds like they may expand on the game in the future too, would be great to get alternate upgrades 
|
|
EvilP
Promising
Known Hero
|
|
posted September 03, 2026 06:25 AM |
|
|
Centurion said:
I hope they focus as much on updating the quality of life and balance as they do on the graphics. Sounds like they're hesitant to do any balance changes, but the balance in the original is not good. The gameplay of Heroes 3, the variety of strategies and factions and things to discover are what made it great to me. HOTA has greatly improved on these things and the overall balance.
I think they don't want to get directly involved in making balance changes themselves
No matter how they tweak things, they won't be able to satisfy the majority of players.
I've already seen some people who don't want them to make numerical adjustments at all.
So the approach they're choosing now is to open up mod support and build in a built-in mod-sharing platform.
From my perspective, what really matters more is how far they're willing to go in terms of making the game moddable, how open they'll actually make it.
And visually, when they chose the Snowdrop engine and free camera, it became very difficult to recreate the original art style.
____________
|
|
Galaad
Hero of Order
Li mort as morz, li vif as vis
|
|
posted September 03, 2026 06:33 AM |
|
Edited by Galaad at 06:37, 03 Sep 2026.
|
EvilP said:
And visually, when they chose the Snowdrop engine and free camera, it became very difficult to recreate the original art style.
Snowdrop and a free camera explain why they couldn't simply reproduce the original visuals. They don't explain the art direction. A 3D engine doesn't choose your proportions, palette, lighting, materials or creature designs for you.
Recreating H3's exact pre-rendered look would certainly be harder with a free camera. Recreating its visual language is an artistic choice, not an engine limitation.
____________
|
|
Centurion
Adventuring Hero
|
|
posted September 03, 2026 03:19 PM |
|
|
Galaad said:
EvilP said:
And visually, when they chose the Snowdrop engine and free camera, it became very difficult to recreate the original art style.
Snowdrop and a free camera explain why they couldn't simply reproduce the original visuals. They don't explain the art direction. A 3D engine doesn't choose your proportions, palette, lighting, materials or creature designs for you.
Recreating H3's exact pre-rendered look would certainly be harder with a free camera. Recreating its visual language is an artistic choice, not an engine limitation.
The town screens and battles looks great to me. Tough to capture the coziness of the original map view in 3D. Some creatures I believe they were trying to do call backs to the originals, and then others I'm just kind of baffled as they don't really look like it. Hope those are temporary.
|
|
Ghost
Undefeatable Hero
Therefore I am
|
|
posted September 03, 2026 04:22 PM |
|
|
Ghost said:
AI art is much better than remake, but friend could play remake, when he can't play an old and puny graphics, but he accepted H3 HD edition.. I don't play H8, thus graphics also I stayed in H3 and H4.. Impossible to leave H3 and H4.. Yeah I tell to friend then.. Thanks..
Why not H4 graphics? It enough well.. H4 modders copied H3 objects and passed to H4, but H3 modders never tried with beauty H4 graphics.. One failed with creatures in H3.. HotA crew copied a few of H4 objects and passed to HotA.. Think!
Yes Ubisoft listened, but creating wrong.. And more H3 again..
I don't know what I should to say.. But remake shows beauty dragons surely.. Where is WoG?
Then yes many players will buy to remake for collection..
Ok 
Friend gave an answer is oh.. Only word, nothing else.. I checked on dictionary.. But only word.. I hope he buys it.. And then he realizes expansion is much better than RoE..
Hmm bro hasn't answered to me..
But I buy it..
All-time important that it can turn into WoG/ERA.. If scripts in presence.. Another what? No bugs..
____________
Fight MWMs - stand teach
|
|
MattII
Legendary Hero
|
|
posted September 03, 2026 10:46 PM |
|
|
Centurion said:
The town screens and battles looks great to me. Tough to capture the coziness of the original map view in 3D. Some creatures I believe they were trying to do call backs to the originals, and then others I'm just kind of baffled as they don't really look like it. Hope those are temporary.
The adventure map scaling is completely screwed, like they wanted to make it a RPG rather than a TBS. The fact that they tried to keep the original footprints for the map objects also didn't help.
|
| |
|
|
