Heroes of Might and Magic V

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To do: There are 2 known builds to exist: one that is an alpha build specifically made for Ubisoft to review, and the other that is a Duel-focused closed beta build that also has differences. Links to download these builds will be put later, as well as sub-pages for them. There is an unused death animation sequence for Bone Dragon that is impossible to play normally in the game without using the magic of effects. For the full showcase 2 animations need to be combined via effects. Review maps for the case of cut elements & triggers. Datamine out models from sub-data package that contains some unused creature models.

Heroes of Might and Magic V is the fifth installment in the Heroes of Might and Magic series, and later received two expansions.

Heroes of Might and Magic V#

Unused music#

Swamp terrain theme

There is an unused music theme for swamp terrain in the files. In the final game, swamp areas reuse the theme for water terrain instead.

Unused battle arenas#

Grass_Small_02

An unused grass type terrain arena that doesn't appear in any used arena polls for each terrain type.

Most notable feature of this arena is the fact that its map size is 32x32, not standard 64x64 that is used by most other arena maps.

Another interesting fact that is related to this map is that this is the arena map that was used on the E3 2005 game demonstration.

Unused creatures#

Black Knight#

In first concepts of Necropolis' creature list instead of Wights & Wraiths as tier 6 creatures the player would instead recruit Black & Death Knights just like in Heroes of Might & Magic III, while Wights & Wraiths instead were supposed to be tier 3 creatures. However when the concept of those creature lists were shown to Ubisoft, they've liked the design of Wights & Wraiths that much that it was decided that instead of knights the player would recruit giant ghosts with scythes.

This has resulted in Wights & Wraiths replacing knights, Ghosts & Specters receiving new designs and Knights becoming neutral creatures. However only Death Knight is actually finished, while Black Knight remains partially unfinished. Black Knight lacks map object, so he's not placeable. However the creature data is still presented in the game, so he can be added into an army of a hero or into a garrison.

The creature itself has slightly different stats (10 points of attack & defence less and 10 points of minimum damage less), lacks Deadly Strike ability, has the same cost and reuses Death Knight's icon & horse textures (the screenshot below is a fan's reconstruction of how Black Knight was supposed to look like. In the game itself without any modding he'd look the same except he'd have Death Knight's horse & weapons). While icon seems to be never created for the Black Knight, the rest of textures can actually be found in files, being located among files of assets for animated cutscenes. The cutscene, which contains assets of the Black Knight, also showcases disembodied body parts of Black Knight, as well as using Wraiths as Specters instead.

Creature's description:

Damned and fallen warriors, Black Knights are independent Vampire warriors who have severed their ties to the Necromancer kingdom. Their eldritch attacks include the ability to curse enemy troops.

Crystal Dragon#

Not to be confused with the Crystal Dragon that was actually added as an alternative upgrade for Sylvan's Green Dragon.

It seems to be that it was supposed to be a neutral dragon, perhaps Ashan's variation of Azure Dragon from Heroes of Might and Magic III. Only name text file remains from this creature, which simply says "(deleted)". Its stats, abilities, creature visual and if it's related to the story or not are unknown.

Fire Bird#

Similarly to the case with Black & Death Knights, instead of Green & Emerald Dragons the Sylvan faction was supposed to have Fire Birds & Phoenixes, similarly to 1st & 2nd installments of the series. However later it was decided to give Sylvan dragons instead, and in the end Phoenix became a neutral creature that can be both encountered and summoned as a separated tier 8 creature, while fire birds were cut from the game.

What remains from the creature are its textures and the sound bank that uses less fire sound effects and lacks special (because Fire Bird can't rebirth itself) and happy sounds for unknown reasons. No text files exist to show its name or description, as well as no creature data. Below is the fan's reconstruction of the creature along with its texture file.

Naga#

On first concepts of army sets for factions, just like in Heroes of Might and Magic III, Academy's tier 6 creatures were supposed to be Nagas, which in the release were replaced with Rakshasa, who fit more with arabic mythology. After the replacement Nagas were reconsidered to become a separate race that lives near the water and worships Shalassa, the dragon god of water. Eventually, Nagas as a race were added into Might & Magic Heroes VI, while in Heroes of Might and Magic V, Hammers of Fate and Tribes of the East there are various resources for unimplemented ideas for the campaign.

What is left from Naga in the original game is a text file for a name that simply states "Naga". No models or textures are presented for them.

Unused heroes#

Temkhan#

Internally named "Timerkhan", Temkhan is a cut hero of the Academy faction with unique specialty "Master of the Sands", which alters the order of the ATB Bar at the start of combat at increasing intensity based on his experience level. It is unknown why he was cut, either developers couldn't put him into the list of default Academy heroes (since every faction has 8 playable skirmish heroes and Academy already has 8 with all currently playable ones) or they couldn't put him into the campaign, or because of his specialty, which could cause slowdowns in game's logic. Despite the fact that it was fixed in Tribes of the East expansion, he wasn't brought back into the story anyhow, nor was he reincarnated in any future Heroes of Might and Magic games. He possesses unique portrait that doesn't match in style of others' (seems to be an early draft) and his specialty's icon also doesn't look polished enough.

He can still be put onto the map or be added into the list of available tavern heroes. He starts with the default Academy army consisting of tier 1-3 units, and possesses Basic Artificer and Basic Sorcery along with Magic Insight. His ingame biography:

Though a recent academy graduate, Temkhan's youth has not prevented him for making a name for himself. Focusing on the elements of time, timing, and the very properties of the continuum of time on Ashan, he can temporarily bend it to his will and strike the first blow in every conflict.

His specialty's ingame description:

Caster transforms the local time continuum, changing the order of creatures' actions at the start of combat. The intensity of the transformation depends on the hero's level.

Guarg#

A cut hero from Inferno faction. It seems that he was supposed to appear in the main campaign as another Inferno hero similarly to Erasial. He uses Marbas' portrait and Alastor's specialty, yet he also possesses unique biography that is not just someone else's biography with swapped names, like how Erasial's profile do. His starting skills - Basic Gating and Basic Dark Magic along with Master of Mind. His ingame biography:

Some brave men, who are dead now, used to say that Guarg is "not entirely demon". Anyone who will make a look in his eyes with stretched out pupils can decide this. But it is better not to say it aloud - Guarg can cruelly punish the offender depriving him of his magical power.

Old Creature icons#

Upon the release of the game some creatures had icons that weren't fitting with them due to them representing their outdated designs. With the release of 1.3 version this issue was corrected in an unique way: instead of updating the main data.pak file, Nival have made a separated .pak file named "p3c-data" with all other changes that were released with 1.3 version. Because of that this pak file loads after main data file and so all those get replaced in the game.

Creature name	Old Icon	New Icon	Notes
Silver Unicorn			Change of Silver Unicorn's color palette from yellow colors to bluish. This is a completely new render of the creature, not just an icon recolor. The visual that is represented on the icon still can be seen in the Faction document that came out with the limited Heroes of Might and Magic V Deluxe edition.
Emerald Dragon			Change of Emerald Dragon's color palette, along with the new icon being a completely new render of the creature. The old icon fits with the emerald's colors more rather than the new one, which doesn't even have more than 1 primary color. Another version of this icon exists online with colors fitting the golden dragon rather than the emerald dragon, with the golden dragon's original visual being in the Faction document that came out with the limited Heroes of Might and Magic V Deluxe edition.
Cavalier			Change of Cavalier's clothes colors to be less blue, along with the head stripe being light blue & white rather than blue and... blue. This is a simple icon recolor.
Spectres			Change of Spectre's eyes colors from red to greenish yellow. This is a very odd change for two reasons: The change was done only for 64px and 32px sized icons but not for 128px, and the icon's colors not even matching with the model's colors since only the 128px one shows the right visual (This causes Specters' icon to sometimes appear either as greyish, and sometimes as dark teal ghosts).
Vampire			Change of Vampire's cape to remove red colors, along with the dark green ambience. This is a completely new render of the creature, and the old visual still can be seen in the Faction document that came out with the limited Heroes of Might and Magic V Deluxe edition.
Vampire Lord			Change of Vampire's cape to remove red colors and recolor clothes to be pale-blue rather than purple, along with the dark green ambience. The old face and head gear, which are similar to the concept art, have been replaced by base vampire's head. This is a completely new render of the creature and the old Vampire Lord's visual still can be seen in the Faction document that came out with the limited Heroes of Might and Magic V Deluxe edition.
Wraith			Change of Wraith's colors to replace red clothes with green. Instead of being a new render, it's only the icon recolor. This results in some bits of original red colors to still be barely visible on the new icon. The original pre-edited icon represents the visual that still can be seen in the Faction document that came out with the limited Heroes of Might and Magic V Deluxe edition.
Ghost Dragon			Change of Ghost Dragon's eyes color from red to green. Same as Wraith's case, it's only an icon recolor, not a new render. This results in the head showing incorrect glow effect on jaw when comparing to the ingame model. The original pre-edited icon represents the visual that still can be seen in the Faction document that came out with the limited Heroes of Might and Magic V Deluxe edition.
Mage			Mage's turban got recolored from white & green colors to beige & beige only. The old visual with this turban still can be seen in the Faction document that came out with the limited Heroes of Might and Magic V Deluxe edition. Why the color was changed is unknown however.
Shadow Matron			Change of color palette for Shadow Matron's hair from black to grey. The old concept art of Shadow Matron showcased them having black hairs. The icon still has one issue however - the eye color (red) doesn't match with in-game's color (grey)

Hammers of Fate#

Unused sounds#

Soundbanks for Vindicator and Battle griffin

There are unused files of unique sounds for Vindicator and Battle griffin units that can't be heard in the game without modifying files. In the final game they instead reuse sounds from Squire and Imperial griffin, just like the rest of the "army of the red church". These sounds are leftovers from an early idea of Renegades being a separated faction, not sub-creatures of Haven, which in Tribes of the East expansion were turned into alternative upgrades.

Vindicator#

Battle griffin#

Old Creature icons#

Similarly to the original Heroes of Might and Magic V, upon the release of the addon some creature icons weren't matching with creatures themselves. This later was fixed in 2.1 patch in the same way as how 1.3 patch was released - by making a new .pak file named "a1p1-data". This time, however, not a lot of icons weren't incorrect, however at the same time there are even stranger cases of incorrect icons.

Creature name	Old Icon	New Icon	Notes
Silver Unicorn			Change of color palette for Silver Unicorn from light brown & red to blue & yellowish colors. Strangely enough, the old icon is not the same one as version 1.0 of original Heroes V had, being just a recolor of a new render.
Cavalier			Cavalier's clothes' colors were changed from beige to light blue. It's a leftover from the idea of base human units to have beige colors while upgrades would have blue palettes. Similarly to Silver Unicorn's case, the old icon is not the same as version 1.0 of original Heroes V had, where his clothes were just more bluish rather than beige. The visual, which is represented on the icon, still can be seen in the Faction document that came out with the limited Heroes of Might and Magic V Deluxe edition.
Spectre			Change of eyes' colors from red to greenish-yellow. Still oddly only includes all sizes but 128px, and still doesn't show the correct creature visual.
Wraith			Change of color palette for undeads to have green colors instead of red. Exactly the same case as from original Heroes V, even bits of red colors are still presented on the new icon.
Ghost Dragon			Change of colors for eyes from red to green. Exactly the same case as from original Heroes V, even the proper lighting on the jaw is not presented.
Shadow Matron			Change of color palette for Shadow Matron's hair from black to grey. The old concept art of Shadow Matron showcased them having black hairs. And yes, the eye color still doesn't match with ingame's textures.

Tribes of the East Expansion#

Unused music#

Renegades faction's themes

There are unused music themes for the faction of Renegades, including a town theme, combat theme, and AI theme. Notably, these themes are located in the folder a1, used for music from Heroes of Might and Magic V: Hammers of Fate.

These themes are another leftovers from an early idea of having Renegades as a separate faction, not as sub-creatures of Haven, which in Tribes of the East expansion were turned into alternative upgrades.

Unused sounds#

Sounds for unused animations

Most new creatures that were added for already existing 7 factions were created while using non-upgraded and upgraded creatures as a base. This has resulted in some unused animations for new creatures to have sounds, which aren't used either. Below is the list of these sounds with notes of why they're not used (WIP, will finish later)

Old Creature icons#

Similarly to the original Heroes of Might and Magic V and Hammers of Fate addon, upon the release of the addon there still were some issues with creature icons... most of which were already fixed by the release of 3.0. Only one icon was fixed in 3.1 patch in the same way as how 1.3 patch was released - by making a new .pak file named "a2p1-data". Despite this patch, there are still some icons that aren't fixed yet, and probably would never ever be officially fixed.

Creature name	Old Icon	New Icon	Notes
Shadow Matron			Change of colors for Shadow Matron's eyes, which finally match with ingame model's eyes!

Unused creature abilities#

Several abilities went unused in the final version of the game due to various reasons: either being too strong, game breaking or just forgotten. Most of them come from Tribes of the East but some existed since Hammers of Fate and original HoMM V due to how game handled creature descriptions at that time. Additionally, Agility existed since Hammers of Fate and was given to unfinished Yeti creatures, and later were given to Wind Dancers.

Duplicates of existing abilities#

For whatever reasons there are text files for "Battle Bear", which are essentially just copies of "Bear Roar" ability. Same goes to "Lay Hands" ability, which has a copy named "Count" that does essentially the same. There's an ability named "Rage of Forest", which is a copy of "Rage of the Forest" ability and does the same.

Aura of Earth Vulnerability#

This creature suffers increased damage from Earth-based spells; this effect is extended to all neighboring stacks, including friendly ones.

This passive most likely was supposed to be given to Elemental Gargoyle along with Auras of Water, Fire and Air Vulnerability. The possible reason of why it didn't happen is because Obsidian Gargoyle, the original upgrade of Stone Gargoyle, has immunity passives only against Water, Fire and Air elements, making them not immune to Earth spells.

What this passive aura does is that it increases the damage taken from Earth element spells by 50%, along with sharing this effect with any other creature standing nearby.

Avenging Flame#

When a stack of these creatures dies, it deals Fire damage to all the enemies on the adjacent tiles. The damage amount depends on the original number of creatures in the fallen stack.

This ability was supposed to be given to Rune Keepers but was removed at one point during the development. Most possible reason of why it was removed is due to its effect: it dealt damage in 3x3 square radius upon creature's death, with the damage amount being 100 multiplied by stack's size at the start of the fight. Even if the idea of sacrificing a caster unit for such ability may not be the greatest idea, the damage output from this ability was absurdly huge, exceeding most spells from Destruction magic.

Despite the fact that the ability was removed from Rune Keeper, there are still remnants of it in the final game, because the Rune Keeper's death sound still has the explosion sound effect since the ability itself lacks any audio. Not only that, the creature description for Rune Keeper still includes glimpses of ability's effects.

Slaying a Rune Keeper is no easy task, and certainly not without fireproof armour. If a mortal blow is inflicted on this dwarf, '''his fiery vengeful spirit is released, in the form of an explosion that incinerates anyone in the vicinity'''.

Crystal Scale#

Crystal Dragon is immune to direct creature killing abilities such as  Harm Touch, Vorpal Sword, Deadeye Shot, etc

As the description says, the ability was supposed to be given to Crystal Dragon (not the one that was cut from original HoMM V) as a compensation for their lack of Earth Magic Immunity. And as the description says, it protects the creature from abilities and passives that can kill at least one creature in the stack no matter how many health the creature has, such as Harm Touch, Vorpal Sword, Deadeye shot and Cold Death. Most likely was just forgotten to be given to the creature, since it's not game breaking and works absolutely fine.

Double Shot#

Creature fires two full shots at the enemy instead of just one.

Works similarly to Double Attack but is only restricted to ranged attacks. It doesn't work exactly the same as Elves Double Shot since it actually does two ranged attacks in a single turn rather than shooting two arrows in a single attack. Most likely was supposed to be given to either Marksman or Crossbowman from Haven, since Crossbowman from Heroes of Might and Magic III did have double shot attack.

What's interesting is that if the ranged creature happen to have both Double Attack and Double Shot, then it'd shot three times in a single turn (one shot by default, second shot from Double Shot and the third shot from Double Attack), since both of these abilities don't cancel each other.

Frightful Presence#

There's a chance the enemy that attacks this creature panics and tries to run to the edge of the arena to get as far away from the creature as possible, losing all initiative accumulated by this time. (Doesn't affect creatures immune to Mind-related spells).

Perhaps the most mysterious ability in terms of who was supposed to have it. As the description says, whenever an enemy tries to attack the creature with Frightful Presence, there's a chance that the said creature creature would instead panic (as if it was hit with the Fear attack) and lose all the initiative. This ability can affect both melee attacks and ranged attacks, with the latter resulting in creatures with ranged attacks running around the combat field too. The most surprising thing is that this ability is affected by Soldier's Luck ability from Luck skill, increasing chances of triggering the effect.

As for who could have such ability there are multiple suggestions. It could be Cyclops' ability received at tier 3 of Blood Rage, it could be Arantir's Avatar of Death ability received at certain level, it could be cut original Crystal Dragon's ability, nobody really knows. What is known, however, is that giving this ability to a non-neutral creature would make the fight way too game breaking and unfair.