Before Heroes of Might and Magic ever came out, one fantastic game had established the benchmark for turn-based fantasy tactics in the future. Master of Magic (1994) by Simtex, released under the MicroProse imprint, was an intricate 4X game that enhanced and acted upon the principles first seen in Sid Meier's Civilization. It quickly gained notoriety and was in direct competition with X-COM: UFO Defense for the title of "Strategy game of the year" worldwide.

Over the next decades, it influenced a multitude of developers, including those working on Age of Wonders and Elemental: War of Magic. To suggest that people still think positively of it now would be an understatement. It was only a question of time (and permission) before a formal remake was unveiled.

Powering Up Grandaddy Again

The Polish/British independent gaming firm MuHa Games is working on Master of Magic (2022), which will be released by Slitherine Ltd. Thea: The Awakening and Thea 2: The Shattering are two recent games produced by the MuHa team that are very similar. Those young independent developers are on their own since, as far as we know, the original developers are not participating in the remake. The Court of Ancient FandomTM is the hardest court of public opinion to appease out of all of them.

We recently tested the preview version, which has 100 turns and a small number of playable wizards but is otherwise feature full and well-polished. Though the apparent departure is the current looks, this recreation seems to be true to the original in terms of the overall idea and underlying mechanisms. However, "modern" may not be the best description for a Unity game created by five individuals. Master of Magic doesn't make an effort to wow the player with its extraordinary beauty. For instance, Age of Wonders III (2014) seems to be much more costly. Naturally, appearances don't mean anything.

Myrror and Arcanus

As previously, Master of Magic places the player in the role of a strong wizard vying with other wizards for supremacy. These differ based on the default race they belong to and the magic schools they are originally skilled in. Nevertheless, since leveling up is an open-ended process in the game, the distinctions between wizards become less noticeable. The demo was restricted to one hundred rounds, thus we were only able to witness a very little portion of it. This was just a small portion of the campaign material in a game with an epic scale like MoM.

The two planes of existence, Arcanus and Myrror, each with its own unique biome and native fantasy races, make up the procedurally created universe. You will choose the one wizard who appeals to you from the group of eighteen applicants, and then you will proceed. At the start, you will have one city under your name and the party of settlers will be escorted by a simple melee unit. Although there are several dungeons, magic nodes, and other interesting locations around the terrain, accessing the majority of them takes at least a medium-sized army. You will thus mostly examine and queue the structures in your starting city in the beginning.

4X with a couple more X-es buried

The turn-based game Master of Magic is complex, with several overlapping and interrelated components. More than anything else, at first, it seems like civilization. You'll survey the area, choose areas for growth, arrange the personnel, and streamline the city's construction backlog. Food and gold are important for fielding troops, so you'll need to be concerned about them. Mana will be used later on, when you begin to carefully explore the various cities and dungeons.

The main gameplay components of HoMM/AoW and related games are research and spell casting. The game has almost two hundred spells, categorized into five schools of magic. The initial set of spells is equipped with every wizard; more spells may be acquired via exploration and dungeoneering. Certain spells may only be used in battle, while others can be cast during the strategic phase. Strategic spells might need many rounds to perform, depending on their intricacy. Casting the Spell of Mastery is one of the requirements for success, but getting to such high level magic is not easy. For others, conquering the whole map could be less difficult.

High Men vs Draconians against Halflings

Hex-based combat is the norm, with a minimal number of soldiers on each side. The majority of races share similar basic troops, including spearmen and swordsmen, and only diverge at higher stages. It is unfortunate that there isn't much actual diversity since there aren't many distinctions between Draconians and Halflings. Yes, the original game operated in the same manner, but in 2022, I doubt anybody will be expecting a 1:1 carbon replica. On the strategy screen, you may program fights to automatically determine the result based on the placement of the forces. Even if you initiated the manual battle by flipping the "auto" switch, there is still a way for fighting to be automated. This is especially helpful during the mop-up stages; after eliminating all melee troops from the battlefield, you will automate the tedious conclusion rather than pursuing ranged skirmishers that evade close quarters.

Heroes are an additional option to normal troops. They engage in battle and are killable just like any other unit, but you may equip them with extra weapons and accessories. Every victory on the battlefield gains experience for heroes and regular troops alike, thus maintaining experienced armies is crucial.

Grateful Work

In eight out of ten situations, remaking, or rather reinventing, a legend such as Master of Magic, is an unappreciated endeavor. The majority of the original's admirers have romanticized memories of the past and will always ignore your attempts. You run the danger of offending those who want innovation in your attempt to appease others who demand tradition. It takes intuition and expertise to strike the right balance between the old and the new—qualities that are much more scarce than development funding.

Master of Magic (2022) carefully walks that fine edge. Too much prudence, we could add. The MuHa team has to rethink the legacy systems with a little more audacity. Above all, they must introduce more racial disparities, even at the risk of game imbalance. All the other material is mostly good, if not exceptional. There is still time for some excellent changes before the entire game launches on December 13.