Ubisoft did not risk touching the "magical balance" of the original in the remake of Heroes of Might and Magic 3

Ubisoft is developing Heroes of Might and Magic 3 Remake with an eye on an audience that's been playing the original for over a quarter century.

Development lead Jean-Félix Monin explained that the team deliberately avoided reworking the core game systems. The key idea behind the remake is simple – add, but don't take away.

The turn-based tactics from 1999 remains one of the pillars of the entire genre, and any tampering with its mechanics tends to hit a nerve with the community. That's why the studio brought in a group of original game experts early on, showing them design work and concepts along the way.

Jean-Félix Monin, development lead:

There is a huge community of very dedicated players that love the original. We didn't really want to, you know, do anything that would upset them.

Early on, we decided to have a panel of insiders that we would work with to show them some of the designs, some of the ideas, and see if they were okay with it.

Monin also brought up series creator Jon Van Caneghem, who, according to him, can't fully explain how he pulled off such a finely tuned system. Monin described it as a "magical type of balance" that just can't be broken down into its parts. Since the formula resists analysis, the conclusion was obvious – leave the core alone.

That doesn't mean everything stays untouched. The team's biggest decision involves the visuals, since recreating the original one-to-one seemed pointless to the studio. Two-dimensional sprites will give way to full 3D graphics, and here Ubisoft plans to lean on its own experience building detailed worlds.

Well, the original was there, so why bother [doing the same thing] … so we decided to move to 3D.

Sharp-eyed fans of the series have noticed that this remake isn't the only attempt to modernize the franchise. Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era recently launched in early access, though Monin sees the two games as complementary rather than competing.

Heroes of Might and Magic 3 Remake is set for 2027. For now, you can add it on Steam.