There are two ways to treat a license, once you find yourself holding one that is loved and respected.

One is to treat it like it’s gold, only release quality product, to ensure that the brand continues to hold it’s value. Licenses like Doom, Unreal, and Mario are licenses about which bad games are rarely, if ever, made. Because why on earth would you kill the goose that lays the golden egg?

The other solution is to treat the license like a two-dollar hooker. With that, I present to you the Casino version of Heroes of Might and Magic.

This is especially tragic for me, not only because I love the real might and magic games (the TBS and the old RPGs), but because I’ve actually worked on two seperate Might and Magic games, at two different companies, over the course of my career. Neither shipped. Maybe, in retrospect, our problem was being too respectful of the license.

Might and Magic is no stranger to whoredom. When 3DO was circling the bowl, they owned the license and were desperately making games in 6 months and slapping titles like ‘Legends of Might and Magic’ and ‘Crusaders of Might and Magic’ on them. The opus of 3DO was, in fact, shipping not just those titles, but also the worst game in the Heroes Franchise, and the systematic destruction of the core ‘Might and Magic’ titles via games still using a ‘doom’-like engine while games like Unreal Tournament, Quake 4 and Morrowind were on the shelves.

I had high hopes that Ubi would rescue the license after they picked it up in the bargain bin after 3DO’s collapse. Unfortunately, Heroes V and Dark Messiah are getting lackluster reviews. Ah well.