Heroes of Might and Magic V - Timeline

Timeline

In August 2003, Ubisoft acquired the rights to the Might and Magic franchise for USD$1.3 million after 3DO filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Ubisoft announced their plan on developing the fifth game in the series under the direction of producer Fabrice Cambounet. These news bred controversy as New World Computing under 3DO had already started making the fifth Heroes game. Although, along with the Might and Magic brand, Ubisoft gained access to NWC's developments on Heroes V (which envisioned it as an isometric 2D game on the Heroes IV engine), it was decided to throw them away and create a completely 3D game.

• October 2003: Development began (approximately)
• March 30, 2005: Ubisoft officially announced that the game was being developed.
• A closed beta began in late 2005; it was announced that the game would be released after March 2006.
• On January 10, 2006, Freeverse announced that the Mac port had been arranged. This version has first been presented at MacWorld 2007
• An open beta began on January 23, 2006 for GameSpy subscribers, with non-subscribers able to join on January 26.
• On April 5, 2006, Ubisoft debuted a free minigame Heroes Mini related to the game.
• On April 9, 2006, Ubisoft announced the release of a Heroes V Demo sometime in that week.
• On April 12, 2006: Ubisoft decided to remove controversial StarForce CD copy protection from Heroes V. The company stated they will use another form of CD copy protection instead. The game shipped with SecuROM, while the Russian version shipped with no copy protection whatsoever.
• On April 13, 2006, Ubisoft released a Heroes V Demo.
• On April 20, 2006, Ubisoft announced that Heroes V had gone gold.
• On May 19, the game was released in the UK and Russia.
• On May 23, the game was released in the US and Canada. (on limited edition DVD-ROM and on 4 CD-ROMs). The limited edition DVD-ROM contains material not included in the CD-ROM release including the complete game soundtrack on audio CD. The Limited Edition also includes HoMM III and IV remastered to work on computers running Windows XP.
• On June 5, the Limited Collectors Edition of the game was released in Poland.
• On June 6, the first patch was released, updating the game to version 1.1.
• On July 20, the second patch was released, updating the game to version 1.2, and adding many new features, but still lacking the much sought-after map editor. A lot of bugs were fixed in this version including a bug that would crash the game after playing it for 2 or more hours. Multiplayer was fixed up and some grammar errors were corrected although some still remain. A 'Hall Of Fame' was also added as a high score table for single player campaigns and skirmishes.
• On September 13, the third patch was released, it contains the map editor and various other features and fixed many bugs, however it also brought back a few bugs, such as the initiative bar being out of sync.
• On November 11, the fourth patch was released.

To market Heroes V, Ubisoft has also created Heroes Mini, a web-based game using the Heroes V units. (Website no longer available)

• On March 1, 2007, Freeverse released Heroes V for the Mac.
• On May 3, 2007, the fifth patch was released.
• On October 25, 2007, the sixth patch was released, containing no copy protection or CD/DVD checks. [For the EU version. The US version of the patch still had copy

protection]

• In 2010 Ubisoft decided to not let Freeverse sell the Mac version anymore
• In April 2011, Ubisoft allowed GOG.com to sell a DRM free version of the Heroes V bundle collection with extras.