Imagine a situation: to write music for a spin-off of one of the most popular RPGs of the 90s, a rock musician is hired, who brings in a dude not from the gaming industry at all, because of which he agrees to do the work for only $400 in a bedroom with an old computer and a mattress in the corner. Then, together, they accidentally choose the wrong recording speed for an important track and leave everything as it is, and create the now legendary musical theme based on an audio collection with samples. What will happen in the end?
It feels like nothing’s good. But you’ve already clicked on the article and understand that the result will be masterpieces that will revolutionize the genre of fantasy music for video games. The result will be the soundtrack of the Heroes of Might and Magic series.
The birth of the Might and Magic series
It’s the 1970s. The era of protest, the heyday of the hippie movement. Pong, Asteroids and Space Invaders are winning the hearts of gamers on both sides of the Atlantic, and the later legendary tank games in monochrome and with the name Tank take their first steps on Atari devices. And all this wildly attracts geeks all over the United States, and they also really like the increasingly popular series of tabletop role-playing games Dungeons & Dragons.
One of these geeks was student John Van Caneghem.
During the day he attended lectures at the Faculty of Medicine at the University of California at Los Angeles, and in the evening he and his friends gathered to leave the dice and plunge into the enchanting world of magical fantasy. At one of these meetings, John meets programmer Mark Caldwell, who introduces him to the Apple II computer. The technological miracle sinks into John’s soul so much that he… quits the medical faculty and transfers to the Faculty of Computer Science. And two hobbies, new and old, begin to merge into one. By the time he graduated from university, John realized that he wanted to create something of his own. Your own enchanting world, full of magic and secrets. In 1983 he begins to create a role-playing game. He begins to create Might and Magic.
Series creator and chief game designer of the Might and Magic series John Van Caneghem
Mark Caldwell. Lead programmer of Might and Magic and co-founder of New World Computing
I played board games my whole life and then I discovered D&D. As much as I enjoyed Saturday board games, I wanted to play more. And as soon as I found out about the existence of video games, from what opportunities they provide, my head just went spinning. Education, passion for games, as well as a passion for mathematics and programming convinced me that nothing would stop me from creating computer games!
John Van Caneghem
Like all great things, John and Mark’s business started small. But if the creators of Apple or Google had at least garages at their disposal, then John and his friend Mark were content with a bedroom in the house of the former’s parents. This was the first office of the newly formed New World Computing. It was real rock and roll. Crystallized creativity, creativity based on enthusiasm for the sake of creating a dream project.
To purchase equipment and software, John even took out a loan, though it was secured by his parents’ guarantees, but oh well, he’ll repay the debt in full a little later. However, in 1985, New World Computing moved to a new office, which was now located in John’s bedroom, where a year later in 1986 he finished work on the game and was thinking about finding a publisher.
The plan worked, but not as intended. The maximum advantageous offer sounded like this: $1 profit from each copy sold. When the cost of the game is 60 bucks, and you remember that the game was distributed on two floppy disks, and their number did not affect the cost. At least 1, at least 2, at least 10. If this is one game, then they ask for $60 for it, regardless of the number of media.
A new plan was needed:
Seems like everything could go wrong? Yes, in fact, anything, however… the bet worked. The phone in John’s bedroom did not stop ringing for 2 months, during which all the printed copies were scattered. And now publishers began to come and offer promotion conditions of varying degrees of deliciousness. It was a success.
Creating music for Might and Magic (not yet Heroes)
The success was well deserved, not least thanks to the musical accompaniment. But first we need to add a little context of the era. Let’s listen to what standard RPGs of that time sounded like, what kind of soundtrack they had.
Example of a 1985 RPG soundtrack
Even if we put aside the fact that the media of those years simply did not allow recording full-fledged compositions, the father of Might and Magic, John Van Caneghem, understood that sound was an integral part of immersion in the world he created. And for the third game in the series, he brought in real composer Todd Hendricks. The musical design became more varied and dense, but this still did not suit the chief game designer. Something else was needed. Something needed to change. The ever-increasing ambitions of New World Computing forced the team to grow. This was no longer a group of a couple of enthusiasts in a bedroom. It was a small team of 15 people with a successful series of role-playing games. The staff has expanded even more to work on part 4 and composer Tim Tully is involved in it, but the soundtrack is still far from ideal.
This is still a standard generic fantasy of those years, but the series itself, its lore, its heart is far from an ordinary adventure. This is a world tied to, perhaps, one of the most curious laws of the writer Arthur C. Clarke
I’ve always been a big fan of science fiction as well as fantasy. Arthur C. Clarke coined the phrase "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic". This idea, plus the Star Trek episode "For the World is Empty and I Have Touched the Sky" formed the basis of the original Might and Magic story. But I didn’t want sci-fi to creep into the world until the very end of the game. I wanted to create a surprise ending, similar to what happens in episodes of The Twilight Zone
John Van Caneghem
John Van Caneghem, like no one else, understood that the series needed an equally non-standard soundtrack. Only the creator could not find the right path and became increasingly immersed in corporate routine.
My biggest challenge was being a designer, game creator, and CEO at the same time. This dual role has always given rise to personal conflicts. On the one hand, I wanted to make every game perfect, add more features, improve… and on the other hand, I had to pay the bills. It was a constant trade-off: the company had to remain profitable or I wouldn’t be able to make my next game. In the beginning I was involved in programming the entire game, but as the projects got bigger I had to focus on leading the teams.
John Van Caneghem
With each new project, John moved further and further away from that same feeling of novelty, that same feeling of experimentation, that same feeling of rock and roll. And then one day he realized that the series needed. Need an experiment. And this experiment required a real rock and roller.
From early childhood, Rob King dreamed of playing in a real rock band, but fate decreed otherwise: in the mid-nineties, the aspiring composer was noticed by New World Computing, which by that time, in addition to Might and Magic, had already begun releasing other projects (you remember that the company was also a publisher?). One of these was the adventure quest Inherit the Earth: Quest for the Orb, where Rob was taken as a co-author to write the musical accompaniment.
But Rob wanted more, and his bosses weren’t against it, especially since he coped with his previous task. And now he is already listed as the main composer of the next game, which was also published by NWC. Iron Cross Strategies. So when John Van Caneghem decided to turn his adventure RPG into a strategy, the author of the music seemed to suggest himself. A passionate musician with ambition and passion, who has not yet been bogged down by corporate tasks, and also with work experience, and even proven on previous projects. The ideal candidate, he gets complete creative freedom to write the music for an offshoot of the company’s most successful game series. To Might and Magic. With everything at stake, he immediately gets down to business… and hires a person who is not at all familiar with the gaming industry.
Paul Romero was born in California and began playing the piano before he was in first grade. According to Paul himself, he simply understands on some intuitive level how music should sound. He feels it and knows how to perform this or that piece.
I started playing the piano when I was three years old. We had a small instrument at home. My parents didn’t play and bought it as decoration. I just taught myself. Whenever I heard sounds that I liked, I don’t know how, but I could reproduce them. Your hands learn to duplicate – it’s like learning a language with your hands. I didn’t listen to rock ‘n’ roll, so I don’t play Elton John in my head. I can’t even play Elton John, I don’t know how to do it. My hands developed naturally from 19th century European music. If someone asks: “Oh, you can compose music in the style of Prokofiev, Mussorgsky or Handel?». I’ll answer "Yes, it’s easy because I don’t even have to think about it". My fingers know where to go.".
Paul Romero
At the age of 9, my parents sent me to a music school. By that time, he already knew how to play Rachmaninov and Chopin, but did not understand anything about the music itself. I didn’t know its theory, I couldn’t read musical notation, I couldn’t write down what I composed. Paul studied diligently, but he didn’t just memorize the compositions of the classics, he made their sequels.
At music school I began to study more deeply serious classical music – Brahms, Bach, Tchaikovsky. And I realized that this is all wildly boring to me. You sit, practice piano concerto No. 1 and fall asleep.Then I started improvising. He learned the beginning of great compositions, and then invented continuations in the spirit of the original. This is how I learned different playing styles and how several brilliant authors influenced me at once. Whatever their style was, I could pick it up and move on.
Paul Romero
A little later Paul wrote his first piano concerto. And speaking a little later, this is literally at the age of 13. Now realize the moment. At the age of 13, he didn’t just write a concerto. This concert was performed by the National Symphony Orchestra at the Kennedy Center, conducted by Mstislav Rostropovich, and played piano by the young Paul Romero himself. As an encore, the same concert was played at the United Nations General Assembly Hall in New York. And all this at 13 years old! In general, Paul grew up listening to the repertoire of Bach, Rachmaninov, Schubert, Tchaikovsky and the entire galaxy of classical music authors. And he constantly improved, but at the same time he could not take up music on a professional basis.
When I was in my 20s, when I graduated from college, I couldn’t get a job. I wasn’t active musically – I worked as a cook, worked in construction, sold products for IBM… I did everything except music because I couldn’t get anyone to listen to it. Zero, nothing. And when I turned 30, I thought: “God, there will never be music in my life again.”. I thought she was out of my life because it’s just impossible to get people to listen. I wanted to, but nothing worked.
Paul Romero
Paul has been playing his own https://sugarbingocasino.co.uk music in the style of classical authors for as long as he can remember. To parents at home, at school, to friends and acquaintances at parties, at one of which Rob King noticed him. This was long before the creation of heroes, but that meeting changed everything.
A friend introduced me to Paul back in 1992 at a party. I remember the moment I saw Paul play the piano. I was extremely impressed not only by his abilities, but also by how genuine a person he turned out to be. We hit it off immediately and have been best friends ever since.
Rob King
The birth of Heroes of Might and Magic music
When it came time to find someone to write the game music for the first Heroes of Might and Magic, Rob King hired Paul Romero, a man with no industry experience, not only because they were friends. Rob knew that Paul had something that he didn’t have. Talent for composing music in a classical style. After all, it seems to be on the surface, but for some reason no one notices: classical music with orchestral parts is exactly what the fantasy genre needs. Someone has to be the pioneer. It should be Heroes of Might & Magic.
I advise you to turn it on in the background while you read
But despite its now legendary sound, the soundtrack was created in very, very modest conditions, and the work of a talented composer cost some ridiculous money even at that time.
Rob called me and said, “Hey, do you want to record some music and we’ll pay you $400?”?"And of course I wanted to earn $400. But I thought it was a one-time job.
Paul Romero
At the appointed time, Paul arrived at my home for a meeting. I had a roommate at the time and my "studio" was essentially my bedroom with a bunch of gear and a small mattress in the corner. We started exchanging ideas and came up with a couple of compositions. I knew we were going to do something special. Thanks to his classical education and my experience in rock and pop music, we complemented each other. Our music had elements of good classical arrangements, but they did not repel the mass listener.
Rob King
The resulting score has a structural complexity not previously seen in game soundtracks. Few composers have previously thought of applying the classical music approach to video game music. Unless the authors of The Dig, inspired by the works of Wagner, achieved something similar.
But let’s return to "Heroes". Few tunes, even today, have such a powerful and confident part in their arsenal as the composition “Barbarian Town”. The dynamic passage on the harpsichord is first joined by just strings, then another and another, so that at the strongest moment, repeating the main part, they give the most powerful counterpoint to five different instruments, and at the end, as if exhale. To enter the second round with renewed vigor.
And the rest of the tracks are not far behind. The general theme of the music – repetition and strengthening of the main motive works simply flawlessly. Almost every composition is a real work with a beginning, development and culmination. This approach applies not only to the city themes, but also to the title track, which sets the tone for the entire game, the tone for the entire soundtrack. And “Sorceress Town” completely contrasts itself with the dynamics of other melodies, bringing the strings to the fore, introducing all the instruments smoothly and naturally, until they are all finally eclipsed by the captivating sound of the harp, giving the already magical music a real atmosphere of magic.
However, what stands out from the overall picture, and will continue to do so for many games in the series, are the battle tracks. There’s no way they can reach the same heights as castle themes, and they won’t do it anytime soon. But with the release of Heroes of Might and Magic, one thing became clear. This turn-based strategy game is the work that took fantasy music to the next level, but the revolution didn’t happen until another game came out. Before the release of "Heroes of Might and Magic 2".
Music from Heroes of Might and Magic II
In the second part, the duo of composers turned into a trio, Steve Baca joined Paul and Rob, he and Rob had been in a rock band called Red Delicious for a long time.
The team had a very obvious task: to make it cooler. How? If you listen carefully to the soundtrack of the first game in the series, and then to almost any composition from the second part, then the answer that the authors arrived at will be quite obvious: add vocals.
I advise you to turn it on in the background while you read.
But Romero and King wouldn’t be geniuses if they just stuck conventional Latin in there, which for most gamers would sound quite organic there. This is often what music creators do. But not in this case.
Rob King, as producer of the Heroes soundtrack, creates rhythmic tracks. He knows the atmosphere suitable for that part of the game that requires more than just an orchestral sound. Once he’s done creating the basic rhythm and motif, I’ll compose and arrange music to go along with it. And every type of rhythm will work. Afro, Latin, Celtic, Roman, Irish. Any.
Paul Romero
A lot of people at the time thought I was crazy for wanting to put opera singing into a video game. But I wanted to highlight the franchise’s personality on a musical level
Rob King
If you dig deeper, and not just enjoy the music, then almost every castle, every faction chooses its own style, including vocal. In subsequent parts of the series this division will be noticeably more pronounced, but the point at which it all began was laid right here, in Heroes of Might and Magic 2. The touching melodies of Barbarian Castle, and the entire soundtrack of this part, are clearly inspired by Wagner and Brahms, even almost quoting the classics. That’s why the vocals are recorded in German.
Considering how complex Romero’s orchestral pieces were in the first game, Heroes of Might and Sorcery 2 makes his operatic compositions feel like real works rather than mere pastiches. The repetition of the melody and tension from the first game has been replaced by a stormy orchestral sound with constant development, which only enhances the perception of the entire work, and the vocals here complete the atmosphere intended by the authors. The score contains a huge number of shades from the almost sinister atmosphere of Warlock Town and Necromancer Town to the sublimity and a touch of mystery of Sorceress Town.
Series newcomer Steve Baca, meanwhile, under the supervision of the same Rob King, began improving another aspect of the musical accompaniment: landscape themes. Not much attention was paid to this point in the first game. In the sequel, the music composers faced a difficult task: to give each location its own personality, but to do it in such a way that they did not attract too much attention to themselves. Didn’t distract. Where Romero needed to complicate, Baca needed to simplify. His compositions can be said to be opposed to what Romero did. Steve had only a few tools at his disposal in each composition to paint vivid images of game locations. For example, “Snow Theme” gives a sense of wonder to flutes with piano accompaniment, and for the desert theme, woodwinds with an Arabic touch are used.
The fact that the composers of Heroes of Might and Magic II were able to master two completely different registers of emotional expression – operatic drive and meditativeness – finally cements this soundtrack’s status as one of the best orchestral scores ever created for a video game. With one exception, which will be discussed later.
Music from Heroes of Might and Magic III
After the success of Heroes of Might and Sorcery 2, the trio of composers Paul Romero, Rob King and Steve Buck were faced with the problem of where to move next? The music of Heroes of Might and Magic II strengthened the weaknesses of the original and became larger in scale. It was impossible to repeat the same strategy – to become even grander. What could be more majestic than the operatic sound of classical music?? The solution was somewhat strange: simplify.
I still recommend turning it on in the background while you read.
What? I mean simplify? The melodies turned out cool, you’ll say (and you’ll be right)! Now I’ll explain: simplify means not using vocals. This was partly the publisher’s decision. But this is not to say that it’s a step back, because even without vocal parts the authors still have room to grow. Romero is slowly cooling down and starting to write music more thoughtfully. If earlier he wanted to put as many ideas as possible, as many aspects as possible into his musical range, now, on the contrary, he decides to use fewer motives and subtexts, but polish each one to perfection.
Once again he constructs his castle themes as variations of motif and melody. Repetition and escalation, but this time much more meaningful. Much more… adult, or something. Even the dark notes of "Dungeon Town" remain relatively light-hearted with their interspersed strings.
Just like “Town – Inferno” meets menacing brass, balances their ever-increasing tone with music box rhythms. What gives the melody weight and context to what is happening?. The compositions develop in such a way that in two minutes they introduce more variety than tracks by other composers in several times longer playing time.
Where the Heroes of Might and Magic III soundtrack manages to surpass its predecessor is in the landscape tracks. Now they are more similar in style to the themes of castles – more intense, which makes the musical accompaniment of the third part, in fact, a music album. After all, there are almost no melodies that stand out from the general tone and mood. Except, which, again, we’ll talk about later.
Moreover, in Heroes of Might and Magic III, sound effects become part of the soundtrack not only of the game world, but also of its music. The howling of the wind and the singing of birds become part of the soundtrack (be sure to listen to the themes “Snow”, “Swamp” or “Water”). The authors show a level that, it seems, they themselves cannot reach.
Music from Heroes of Might and Magic IV
Despite the stunning success of the third part, things were not going well for New World Computing. A number of financially unsuccessful games and commercial decisions forced budgets to be squeezed and development time to be reduced.
I still recommend turning it on in the background while you read.
And if not all fans accepted the gameplay innovations of the fourth part with enthusiasm, then the music remained true to itself. It’s even surprising, but despite the difficulties, no expense was spared to record vocal parts. Not just vocals were involved here, but a real Bulgarian women’s choir “NEVENKA”
The opportunity to work with a huge choir was certainly exciting for Romero and King. They were already experienced composers, and the more interesting is the fact that when recording the choir they… messed up.
We had a Bulgarian choir in Los Angeles recording the women’s parts. All participants were American and spoke Bulgarian. It was their accent that we needed. We accidentally used the wrong speed while recording. This made their voices much higher pitched, making the women sound like children. We found out about this during the meeting. Moreover, we could not do anything, because there was no way to reassemble the choir and re-record the parts. So we had to change the music itself to accommodate the higher speed of the choir.
Paul Romero
But even without the help of the choir, the authors have become so skilled that all other melodies sound lively and interesting. Still magical.
However, the limited budget and, most importantly, the timing, made their own adjustments. Therefore, samples were used for the first time when writing music. I’ll make a reservation: I’m not against sampling as a tool for writing music. It’s just that sampling was used for the first time in the series to create music. Yes, not just involved. Perhaps one of the most popular melodies among fans is based on the sample: a marine theme. Her motives can be heard in the game based on “Pirates of the Caribbean” and even in the anime “12 Kingdoms”
In general, despite the fact that the melody, like the others, was not written from scratch, is it bad?? In my opinion, not at all, and it certainly doesn’t make the soundtrack worse. Cause the rest of it is just great. The terrain tracks are some of the best in the series. Celtic and East Slavic motifs with accordion and violins of “Hope” or the drawn-out melodies of “The Prayer” made one feel something familiar in video game music long before “The Witcher”.
And here we come to the exception that I deliberately avoided when mentioning the previous couple of games in the series. Battle tracks. They haven’t evolved at all since the first part. It’s still the same rhythmic tapping as before. It’s difficult to say why this happened, but they sound very foreign in both the first and fourth games. Their monotonous, moody nature hasn’t changed much, and they’re still much less interesting than the rest of the soundtrack. And that’s how it could have ended, because soon after the release of the 4th part, New World Computing suffered a complete financial fiasco, closed, and the intellectual property went under the hammer. And the revival of the series came from where they were not expecting.
Music from Heroes of Might and Magic V and the beginning of the Ubisoft era
The French from UbiSoft bought the rights to the Might and Magic universe in 2003 and decided to take their time. According to reliable information from unreliable sources, it is known that New World Computing had some developments in relation to the fifth part, but it was decided not to use them for just one reason: Ubisoft wanted the new part to be made in 3D. So a new engine was needed. In addition, Ubisoft itself did not have enough competent employees to develop a turn-based strategy game. Which means a developer was needed. Which can do both strategies and turn-based tactics. And surprisingly, all the necessary components were found at Nival. She had experience creating the very warmly received strategy Blitzkrieg, turn-based tactics Silent Storm, and even the latter’s engine was simply ideal for new Heroes.
I really strongly advise you to turn it on in the background while you read.
While Ubisoft decided to make a few gameplay changes with Heroes of Might and Magic V, it was an extremely wise decision on their part to stick with what was working and bring back Paul Romero and Rob King to write the music. As a result, the composers wrote almost 2 hours of soundtrack for the main game and then about another hour of music for the add-ons. And it turned out great. The authors have again found a way to develop music. And now she has found the "Main Theme". That is, the guiding composition. We’re talking about Dies Irae (pronounced diEs Irae, in case you’re interested in Latin).
A short digression: Dies Irae is a sequence in the Catholic Mass, one of the most popular Gregorian chants, which has been used in music for several centuries. The earliest mention of the text dates back to the 13th century, and composers took it as a basis in the 16th century, if not earlier. But what is important to us is not so much how ancient this text is and other facts from Wikipedia, but that the text itself tells about the Day of Judgment, about the punishment of sinners, about the ascension of the righteous to heaven, about the fiery hyena… it fits perfectly with the setting of “Heroes” doesn’t it? And Romero, of course, knew about all this. He deliberately decided to choose Dies Irae as a connecting theme.
Liszt used a similar melody. And Mozart. And even Rachmaninov in "Isle of the Dead" – one of the greatest works I heard when I was a child. Even if you don’t know what Dies Irae is, the sound of this tune is very intriguing. For almost a thousand years, people have liked this melody on an intuitive level. In the same way, when you hear "Moonlight Sonata" – everyone likes it. I don’t know why. Probably because there is something special in simplicity – it unites people. That’s why I always wanted to use Dies Irae.
Paul Romero
The main theme runs through the entire adventure. Through the company of Light, through the company of darkness, where previously a soft and calm melody reappears in the harsh performance of the wind instruments. Romero grew as a composer. He became a real author with a capital A right here, in the fifth part, where the soundtrack finally gained integrity and became, in my humble opinion, something more than just music for the game.
Finally, battle music has changed. Her character has completely changed. Now these are the lush battle cries of the orchestra. On the one hand, today they sound like typical music for such battle scenes in games and films, and one could convict Romero and King of abandoning originality. However, this is how the soundtrack is perceived today. At the time of release it was still not so hackneyed. Yes, it’s too simple and banal compared to the rest of the compositions, but such tracks fulfilled the main function: so that there would be no more weak points in the music of the heroes of sword and sorcery. The compositions accompanying the hero’s wanderings around the area are also beautiful and do not stand out from the overall picture.
The soundtrack has become complete. Became the best, as Romero admits in numerous interviews. But UbiSoft had a sequel planned. And was there anything more to offer the author duo than what they had already done??
Music from Might and Magic Heroes VI
In 2011, the sequel not only strangely changed the name, but also the composition of the authors.
I still timidly advise you to turn it on in the background while you read.
No, King and Romero still remained at the helm, but Chris Velasco, Sasha Dikichan and Jason Graves were assigned to help them. You can write a separate article about each of them. These people, both individually and together, worked on such series as: Splinter Cell, Mass Effect, God of War, Darksiders, Borderlands, StarCraft, Dead Space, and the list goes on and on. It is important that they were experienced people, but from, so to speak, a different league. Unlike Romero and King, they have always gravitated more towards electronic music, which is noticeable in their works.
Yes, even in the same Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, which was developed in parallel with the fifth heroes, and the music for which was written by Velasco and Dikchan, it is clear how different the approach to creating music is there. And not to say that the series would not suit him.
In other words, the vector for the experiment was given. In a number of works the influence of Asian music is noticeable (for example, the track Sanctuary). While other tracks have a more ambient feel, more…electronic. Graves, who created the excellent score for the second Dead Space, fits perfectly with the fantasy sound of the characters and does not cause a feeling of foreignness. What is “Jungles of Hashima” worth?.
Romero and King do what they already do better than anyone else in the industry, write fantasy music for castles and map travel, and write perhaps some of the best compositions of their careers. What’s worth at least the violin part in “Flight of the Griffin”. Or the magnificent main theme of the sixth heroes.
At the same time, Graves, Velasco and Dikcan simply take to some unattainable height what has long been the Achilles heel of the series. Her battle tracks. The brutality of the drums is reminiscent of the action music from Dead Space and is no less impressive. Yes, this is not the same at all, but is departure from the canons always bad?? Here everyone decides for himself, because even then it was not only the visual style and gameplay that split the fans of the series (although they “split” after the release of almost every part before), and the times when the Heroes of Might and Magic franchise released revolutionary soundtracks are over, this does not mean that the music in Might & Magic Heroes VI has become bad. She became different. This is still a varied, cohesive fantasy score, and the decision to bring new composers into the series allows us to discover new facets of this very music. It’s a shame the series didn’t have the best of times.
Music from Might and Magic Heroes VII and the end of the series
Sales of the sixth part were not the most encouraging, and by the middle of the tenth UbiSoft was no longer the kind of company that easily goes into experimentation. This is probably partly why it was decided not to change the main composers of the series, Romero and King, but they also refused to invite very experimental electronic artists. At the same time, the star duo was not forced to impose anything from above, nor were they given any strict instructions. They just needed to write music for the new characters. And they wrote music for new heroes.
I advise you to turn it on in the background while you read, of course, but if you haven’t turned it on by this point, then you don’t have to turn it on anymore. Almost everything already.
No seriously, I don’t have much to add to this. The soundtrack of the seventh part is not bad. But he became, in my opinion, what he initially struggled with. It became a common generic fantasy of its time.
King and Romero are still giving it their best, still writing great music, but it no longer has the rock ‘n’ roll spirit of the first game, no experimentation with a choir like in the second game, not even the fun borrowing of samples from the fourth, the guiding composition of the fifth and the electronic experiments of the sixth. This is still great music for fans of the series, it is solid, high-quality, interesting, but… absolutely the same as before. This is the first game in the series where there was no experiment in the score. And in any other franchise this music would look great, but for “Heroes” more is needed and the composers always gave it “more”, but not this time.
Based on pop-up information here and there, UbiSoft still does not plan to bury the great series completely, but it’s hard to imagine what the current company can do with it. At the same time, nothing ever dies completely, and the world of Might and Magic has already outlived its founding company, giving us several excellent parts, several hours of magical music from talented people. So personally I believe in the best.
The creator of the series, John Van Caneghem, is still active and speaks with great respect of the entire franchise; Rob King is active in his musical group Red Delicious and is still friends with Paul Romero, with whom he occasionally works on game soundtracks. Romero himself willingly communicates with fans and regularly gives concerts at which he plays the same magical music from Heroes with a symphony orchestra. And even if the new Heroes never come out, or come out without Romero and King, their legacy will live on. And you can always turn on your favorite composition and, as if in a time machine, be transported back to the time of your favorite part to a wonderful soundtrack.
If you’ve made it this far, then as an encouragement, I suggest you listen to Paul Romero and the Heroes Orchestra perform music from Heroes of Might and Magic III. This is just great!
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