I have heard many mixed opinions on this game. It seems to be very much a “love it or hate it” affair. I said Heroes 3 was a major revamp of the system, but it has nothing on this. Virtually everything has been radically altered in this installment – it has a bit of a “see what sticks” feel to it. Like most people, it seems, I am personally rather divided. I like some of the new additions and changes, but others I feel were poor decisions. Some of the concepts introduced here were refined into a more palatable form in Heroes 5, but more on that later.

Like Heroes 3, it also has some rather complicated and confusing chronology, though at the very least it does not have an unholy sequel/interquel hybrid Might & Magic tie-in game like Heroes 3 did.

Let’s delve into this beast.
Apparently, the behind-the-scenes story for why the developers tried something so radically different was that 3DO and New World Computing were falling on hard times. I have to say I find this rather admirable – when facing financial turmoil, most entertainment companies fall back on the same tired formula, churning out bland clones to grab a quick buck. I’m glad that the developers were able to resist that urge and had the courage to experiment and try new things anyway. Unfortunately, it didn’t work – 3DO still went bankrupt and had to sell off the rights to the franchise – but at least the company died with honor.

…Speaking of bland clones, though, it turns out the company actually did exactly that immediately following the conclusion of Heroes 3. You see, there are actually a set of eight stand-alone campaign modules made in the Heroes 3 engine collectively known as Heroes Chronicles.

(What’s that? You thought the tangled web of chronology was over? Oho. How silly you are!)

They tell a completely new story that is necessary to understand the beginning of Heroes 4. I didn’t really play them, because by that point I’d had enough of Heroes 3 and also MASSIVE TIMESINK. Instead I absorbed it through a combination of plot summaries, Let’s Plays, and cheating my way through. (I also noticed that Let’s Plays of this game are freaking exhausting, usually about the length of a blockbuster movie per episode, which kind of defeats the purpose of not playing it myself to save time!)

The protagonist of Heroes Chronicles is Tarnum, a barbarian hero from the ancient past who led an insurrection against the wizard lords who were oppressing his people, in the process massacring innocent villages, murdering his advisors, and becoming exactly what he fought against.

Wait, what? That’s new.

I was planning to once again trumpet “Oh look, the good warrior hero is fighting against the evil wizards because logic bad emotions good, ho hum,” but to my surprise, the writing and plotting is surprisingly good. The morality is not as black and white as it was in previous installments, and Tarnum is rightfully condemned by the narrative for his bloodlust. There’s even a neat little bit early on where one of the wizards has captured some of the historians that Tarnum believes are vital to his cause (because culture and history etc.). When Tarnum refuses to give into his demands, one of the historians is killed – and, interestingly enough, the narrative is not completely on Tarnum’s side for this. It actually provokes a flash of self-doubt in him as he realizes that, in a way, it is his fault for putting these people in danger. It’s surprisingly deep and self-aware narrative, as any game about sending people to their deaths for personal glory should have. Oh, and the reason captured enemy towns switch sides? It’s because you’re holding their families hostage. This is, unfortunately, not remarked upon ever again, but holy crap that’s the legit canon explanation for what you’re doing and it’s horrifying. (I do wonder how that works for inferno towns though.)

I do think there are a few things that could have been better: Tarnum’s shift into genocide mode is a bit sudden and he doesn’t act like a believable person afterwards, I thought (“Oh hey my dad appeared out of nowhere to tell me he was hearing horrible rumors and is worried about what I’m doing, whatever could he be talking about I have no idea“), there are a few plot holes (how did Kurl kidnap the historians, why is Tarnum’s apprentice plan never brought up during “Ultimatum”, what is Yog doing in a prison like 1000 years before he was born seriously was it too hard to do a special biography for him what the crap writers), it could have had more depth and substance (though that’s likely due to limitations in the medium), the only women are disposable tragedy props, and it doesn’t appear to have been edited (multiple typos). I also think the narrative would have been much stronger if we weren’t told the twist from the start – that way, the game really could have swept the rug out from players who projected themselves onto Tarnum (as the game does with all its other heroes), instead of creating the safety net of knowing it already.

I am very curious as to what the writer’s thought process was throughout this. (Or were there multiple writers…?) I don’t know if they simply thought this would make an interesting story, or if they realized how well it tied into the gameplay and purposefully used it to challenge players and push the envelope a bit. I fear it may have just been the former, with the latter being a happy coincidence – spoiling the twist prevents players from totally immersing themselves in Tarnum, as I said, and it doesn’t pull quite enough parallels to be an indictment of the game itself, just Tarnum’s own insanity. (That may have been enforced though, since I don’t see a plot pitch of “screw you for playing this game” going down well with the execs.) Regardless, it’s leaps and bounds ahead of the usual dross. Though the gameplay is nothing new, I’m glad the developers chose to at least tell a good story with their cashgrab.

In the end, Tarnum is killed by a knight, but because of the atrocities he has committed, the gods judge him unworthy of entering paradise. He is told that he will only be accepted if he performs acts of good to counterbalance his wrongdoing. The gods throw him back to earth as the “immortal hero”, forced to obey their every whim for countless eons until he is judged worthy. This is where the episodic nature comes in – all of the other campaigns revolve around the quests the gods mandate for Tarnum. To be honest, it doesn’t seem like the others are nearly as good as the first. Though I didn’t watch any playthrough videos at all, the plot summaries make them seem rather generic and filler-ish. They also kill off Mutare – that’s the lead of the “Dragon’s Blood” campaign in the Armageddon’s Blade expansion – in a really petty way. She’s the main antagonist of one episode, and at the end she’s killed off by a random dungeon overlord from nowhere, and it’s all deep and poetic because that’s just how she came to power!!!!! I…feel kind of bad about pulling the sexism card here, but I really don’t know how else to look at it. The whole “poetic justice” thing just feels a bit…needlessly spiteful.

The final episode is the most important one. Tarnum is told to prevent a prophecy that states that if a magic sword, the Sword of Frost, ever comes in contact with Armageddon’s Blade, the world will be destroyed. Gelu also hears of this prophecy, and instead of renouncing or attempting to destroy Armageddon’s Blade, decides to be an idiot and go after the Sword of Frost himself. It turns out that the wife of Kilgor (another AB protagonist) is also gunning for the sword, to give to her husband of course because LOL like women can do anything for themselves. Tarnum beats Gelu to the sword, but Kilgor’s wife steals it out from under his nose.

And so, the inevitable happens. The intro video of Heroes 4 is prime idiot ball material – Gelu fights Kilgor with Armageddon’s Blade, even though he was explicitly told that doing this would blow up the world. I admit the video of the fight itself is remarkably well-directed to a point – Gelu is visibly tense, and consistently tries to dodge instead of block… Until the end, anyway, when for some reason he parries like an idiot, then explosions.

Catherine. Catherine why did you think giving Gelu the blade was a good idea. You were supposed to be smart.

Oh and speaking of that, Catherine dies here, and so does Roland for that matter. In one fell swoop they’ve killed off all the remaining main characters. Like I said, it seems they’re really devoted to trying new things, and I suppose that includes completely changing the story’s direction as well. I wonder if they thought the old, convoluted Might & Magic plotline was a turn-off (it was) and felt this was the solution to the series’ waning popularity, thus necessitating a hasty transition to a completely new setting with few ties to the old games. It’s really the only explanation for why the characters have suddenly become braindead enough to make the idiot plot work. (Why they didn’t just do an actual reboot is beyond me.) I wonder if the Heroes Chronicles writers were in on this too or if the Sword of Frost thing was tacked on after everything else? Because the awful, awful plotting seems really at odds with their general competence. I don’t even know.

Of course, we wouldn’t have a story if everyone died here, so it’s deus ex machina to the rescue! Random portals suddenly open up all throughout the world, and people flee into them and end up on a brand new planet. Try not to blow this one up too, guys!