"Heroes of the destroyed empires" - review of the domestic strategy

"Heroes of the destroyed empires" is a real-time strategy from the cult Stalker developers. This game was released in 2006 only on personal computers. Acquainted with the strategy, you can understand what the Ukrainian studio was doing until the release of their main project. In this article, read the full review of the game.

History of creation

In those days, the company GSC did not expect anything special in terms of the release of good games. While the issue with the release and development of "Stalker" was in limbo, the studio decided to release its own strategy. Projections for the project were questionable - in the European region it was planned to sell no more than 60,000 copies of the game.

The strategy was based on a series of books "Heroes of the Destroyed Empires: The Magic of Blood", written by Ilya Novak. He also took part in writing a full-fledged script for this game. Because of this, many were skeptical about the future strategy. However, in the game success depends not only on history, but also on game mechanics, gameplay and so on. Therefore, the strategy turned out better than anyone could have guessed.

What is the game about?

Although the project turned out better than all expectations, most of the promised innovations and opportunities developers have not implemented in the final version. The player has to choose one of four races: elves, cryo, gnomes or undead. Each side has its own characteristics and abilities. Because of this, for all races have to choose different strategies and styles of play. For example, playing for the undead, it is preferable to take the enemy number. Elves prefer stealth and contactless fighting, gnomes - craftsmen in dealing with weapons, and gang krio prefers to crack down on opponents with the help of fighting animals and connection with nature. In each race, there are three initial characters, which form the main backbone of your unit throughout the passage.

The game "Heroes of the Destroyed Empires" does not offer anything new for the genre. In it everything is ordinary and old as the world. All the division into races, features and so on under the pure is copied from older strategies. Was it worthwhile for the GSC studio to speak so loudly about innovations in the genre and revolutionary mix of RTS and RPG? Probably not.

Plot

The whole story revolves around Novak's first three books. Theoretically, the developers planned to create a whole franchise for this universe, but due to low popularity they were forced to abandon this venture. In addition, after the strategy was out, the company plunged into Stalker.

History is a banal fantasy fairy tale. The opposition of the good to the bad leads the world almost to ruin. It is up to the player to decide the fate of the world and choose the side that is preferable to him. The whole story is filled with cliches. However, claims should be made not to the developers of the game, but to script writers and the author of a series of books.

Unfulfilled promises

Developers of the game "Heroes of the destroyed empires" persistently urged the entire gaming community that their game will be one of the most innovative in the genre. What did we get as a result? Consider in order.

The first thing the creators promised was an interesting mix of RTS and RPG genres. In fact, players received a set of borrowed ideas from other projects. All the so-called innovations were present and successfully implemented in SpellForce.

Secondly, the developers promised full-fledged terraforming (changing the landscape of the map). In the release version, everything turned out to be quite sad. Terraforming in the game works as follows. For each race there is a special type of terrain. With the base in the new location, the land begins to acquire a characteristic shape and shade over time. On this, all the changes at their discretion in the game end.

Passage

In the game "Heroes of the destroyed empires" you have to go through 15 missions. Among them there will be interesting and dynamic tasks, as well as protracted ones. History is served between quests and tasks in the form of pictures with inscriptions. The artists who worked on the project did their best. The design of the game was very colorful and detailed.

According to the gameplay part and interesting strategy "Heroes of the destroyed empires" constantly sinks. Bleeding the characters is nothing curious. It seems that the creators tried to make the development system as simple as possible and overdone it. The development in the game turned out to be absolutely uninteresting.

The result

However, in one game it was good. This strategy is the first domestic project for a long time, in which you can spend time without tears. And the game is good from a nostalgic point of view. Unfortunately, it did not come to the project "Heroes of the destroyed empires 2". Perhaps in the new part, the developers would correct the errors, but no one will return to this series. Studio GSC fell apart after the release of three parts of the "Stalker", and the rest of the domestic Igroprom deals with any things, but not the revival of good and classic series of favorite projects and universes.