i wanted to share my opinion with you guys here in hopes of discussion and feedback

so i recently decided to revisit heroes of might and magic v. not because of nostalgia exactly, but because i wanted to see if the game was actually as good as i remembered. last time i played it was probably 12-15 years ago. i never finished the final mission of tribes of the east. back then i thought it was because i was young, impatient or simply bad at the game. after replaying most of it now, i realized the reason was much simpler.

i was bored.

and that's a problem because boredom is probably the worst thing a strategy game can achieve.

the weird thing is that homm5 is clearly not a low effort game. quite the opposite. ubisoft bought the ip, reinvented almost everything, created a new setting, moved the series into 3d, gave every faction a distinct visual identity and backed it all up with one of the best soundtracks in the genre. there is so much obvious effort here that it actually makes the game's shortcomings more frustrating.

because after dozens of hours i found myself asking a very simple question.

where is the hook?

why am i playing this campaign?

what is the thing that is supposed to pull me from one mission into the next?

and the answer, unfortunately, is not much.

if i'm being completely honest, every campaign in homm5 can be described in a single sentence.

isabel wants to save her fiancé.

markal manipulates everyone.

raelag searches for his identity.

findan defends the forest.

zehir liberates the silver cities.

that's basically it.

now obviously every story can be reduced to a sentence if you're determined enough. the problem is that homm5 never really expands beyond those sentences. it takes one idea and stretches it across five missions. by the end it feels less like a story arc and more like somebody repeating the same point over and over again.

markal was probably the most interesting character for me. not because he's brilliantly written, but because everybody else is so passive. everybody reacts. markal acts. he has goals, plans, ambitions. he moves the plot forward.

raelag is interesting for different reasons. there is a certain silence around him. a sense of danger. he feels like somebody who is constantly holding something back. when i first played the game years ago i don't think i even realized he was agrael. this time around i appreciated his campaign a lot more.

but even then there are problems.

the game constantly wants me to care about characters without giving them meaningful opposition.

markal works because everybody around him is naive.

raelag works because nobody seriously challenges him.

findan doesn't work at all.

findan is probably the best example of how disconnected the writing is from the rest of the game. his portrait looks like a guerrilla fighter. his description talks about ending battles before they begin. his skill is literally storm of arrows. everything about his visual presentation suggests somebody ruthless, practical and dangerous.

then he starts talking.

suddenly he sounds like he would rather discuss poetry, flowers and philosophy.

there is nothing wrong with a character like that. the problem is that the game never bridges the gap between those two versions of him. instead of complexity you get contradiction.

but the writing isn't even my biggest issue.

my biggest issue is the world itself.

or more accurately, the lack of it.

one thing that became very obvious while replaying homm5 is how much it suffers when compared to warcraft iii.

warcraft iii constantly gives the impression that the world exists independently from the player. every map feels connected to a larger whole. there are side quests, small stories, random characters and details that have absolutely nothing to do with the main plot but everything to do with making the world feel alive.

homm5 doesn't really do that.

everything waits for you.

nothing happens until you arrive.

the world doesn't move.

it just sits there.

there are moments where it almost works. one early mission talks about strongbow, a city located near forests famous for producing the finest bow wood in the kingdom. around the city you find peasant huts, archer related structures and environmental details that suggest an entire regional culture built around archery.

that's actually good worldbuilding.

the problem is that it lasts for about ten minutes.

after that the map goes right back to feeling like a collection of gameplay objects randomly placed around the terrain.

and that's probably the most frustrating thing about homm5.

the engine is actually equipped to tell better stories.

the different biomes help define faction identity.

the maps are large.

the atmosphere is strong.

the music does half the storytelling on its own.

all the tools are there.

they just aren't used.

instead most missions fall into the exact same structure.

introduction.

problem.

new threat appears.

build army.

capture town.

enemy reinforcement arrives.

victory screen.

repeat.

zehir's second mission was where i finally hit my limit.

supposedly you're returning to liberate the silver cities from necromancer occupation. sounds great. could have been one of the strongest scenarios in the game.

instead the ai sends a death ball at you during the first week that you're realistically not supposed to beat.

so what follows is not a desperate liberation campaign.

it's hours of kiting.

you take a town.

he takes it back.

you lure him away.

you retake it.

repeat.

it's not hard.

it's not clever.

it's not stimulating.

it's just time consuming.

there is a difference between challenge and friction. homm5 often confuses the two.

same thing happened with the final findan mission against vampire nikolai. the mission has a reputation for spawning absurd numbers of spectral dragons depending on how things play out. that's not tension. that's number inflation pretending to be tension.

which finally made me understand something.

i didn't quit tribes of the east all those years ago because i was young.

i quit because the game exhausted me.

and after replaying it now, i ended up doing exactly the same thing.

the only difference is that this time i understand why.

despite all of this i still understand why people love homm5.

honestly, i wanted to love it too.

the town screens are still gorgeous.

the soundtrack is still incredible.

the visual style aged surprisingly well.

some heroes are genuinely memorable.

the atmosphere does a lot of heavy lifting.

maybe too much.

because in the end atmosphere is carrying almost the entire experience.

without it i don't think anybody would still be talking about these campaigns twenty years later.

homm5 is one of those games where the potential is almost more impressive than the final product. you can constantly see what it could have been. a stronger narrative. better mission design. more confident worldbuilding. more willingness to let the world exist beyond the player's immediate objectives.

instead we got a game that survives mostly on vibes.

great vibes, admittedly.

but vibes nonetheless.

and maybe that's the real tragedy of heroes of might and magic v.

it isn't a bad game.

it's a game that could have been much better than it actually is. 

A Look back (and farewell) at HoM&MV (5.5)