Hi everyone,
As you may know, later this year we'll be releasing the first of two free campaigns for Heroes VII. Known collectively as the Lost Tales of Axeoth, these campaigns (Unity and Every Dog Has His Day) are based on unused scripts from Terry Ray written while H4 was in development, but never produced back then (although their names appear in H4's high-score screen
)Besides the celebration of the 20th Anniversary of Heroes, for us these campaigns are also a good opportunity to also develop the map editor and demonstrate its mapmaking and modding capabilities. And of course, all new content included in these maps will be available to all mapmakers to use in their own creations
Since these campaigns are, in a way, a spiritual successor to my old Legends of the Ancients campaigns (it's not a coincidence I've chosen a name with these initials :p), that were hosted here on CH, I thought it could be fun to create a topic here, and discuss what kind of things you'd like to see in the Lost Tales. I may not be able to do everything (I'm mostly working on this project by myself, with Limbic as "tech support / cheerleaders"The first one, Unity, will be released in late 2015. Players will take control of the Academy faction across 5 maps. The story follows the characters Genevieve Seymour and Pherlon as they embark on a journey to the Broken Isles in search for a greater understanding of magic. Genevieve knows in her heart that in the past magic users have forced magic into an unnatural organization based on the elements. There must be another way… and Genevieve is determined to discover it.
The second campaign, Every Dog Has His Day, will be released in early 2016. Players will take control of the Stronghold faction across 3 maps, and more specifically the barbarian hero, Dogwoggle. At the height of his career, Dogwoggle was one of King Kilgor's barbarian generals, but he soon learned that Kilgor was quite mad and leading the world of Enroth toward destruction. Having managed to flee to Axeoth, Dogwoggle now finds himself hunted by his former allies. As it turns out, Dogwoggle might be slightly responsible for the end of the old world…
) but I might be able to do a few So far we've already announced:
> 68 new Hall Heroes, most of them based on the original art of Heroes III and IV’s portrait artist, George Almond.
> 8 new Story Heroes, including main characters Genevieve Seymour, Pherlon and Dogwoggle, as well as their friends and foes.
> Several Heroes IV music tracks used under license from Rob King and Paul Anthony Romero, to recreate Axeoth’s enchanted atmosphere.
> New (and old) artefacts.
> And of course… surprises!
While I won't spoil all the surprises, I can already tell you they include a bunch of new buildings and map locations. Another thing we've discussed in the comments of the H7 blog is that the current factions will be modded to be closer to their H4 counterparts. So yes, Necropolis will have Demons instead of spiders. I know the thought of "Infernopolis" still generates strong feelings across the boards, but to me that's an integral part of Heroes IV
And while I won't actively hunt all references to Ashan, I'll change the most obvious ones (i.e. Tear of Asha ==> Grail).So that's it
I hope you'll like these campaigns and I for one am thrilled to be able to give life to Terry's untold stories, not to mention that we're returning officially to the ancient universe for the first time in more than a decade. It's also nice to have finally an official map of the lands of Heroes IV. Funny how it looks nothing like how I imagined it back in LotA 
Cheers ^^
