Might & Magic Heroes VI Preview

The folks at GameSpy have put online a brief hands-on preview for Ubisoft and Black Hole Entertainment’s Might & Magic Heroes VI, based on the time they’ve spent with the title’s beta. Here’s a short sampling:

Whatever side you choose, Heroes VI looks great. Battles scale larger than in previous Heroes games, and the terrain is more dynamic, as you can do things like take cover from enemy ranged units. Flying units can take off and briefly leave the battlefield to make swooping attacks (protecting them from enemy archers), and heroes are more directly involved in fighting the battles first-hand. Heroes are also much more customizable and versatile than in previous Heroes games, allowing you to distribute their talents into administrative, tactical, magical, or direct combat abilities as you see fit, rather than sticking slavishly to a specific paradigm.

Most of the other stuff is, thankfully, very similar to past Heroes titles: You build your cities up with resources either produced by structures you control on the overall map, or scavenged from caches. Unlike Heroes V, Heroes VI only has four major resources — gold, ore, wood, and crystals — but still offers a wide variety of race-specific buildings with all sorts of powers. You need to choose wisely, though, as a city only has so many building slots, and your towns fill specific roles: a resource multiplayer, a trading village, a troop supplier, etc. This makes for some pretty cool empire management options.