Might and Magic IV: Clouds of Xeen

Might and Magic IV: Clouds of Xeen is an RPG by the American studio New World Computing that brought the series to the world of Xeen and offered an expansive environment to explore with a party of up to six player-created characters. The goal is to uncover the mystery of strange phenomena threatening the world of Xeen, as the player gradually discovers a connection to a spaceship and technologies hidden beneath the surface of the fantasy world.

The game uses grid-based first-person movement and turn-based combat typical of the series, along with a deep system of classes, spells, and items. A special feature was that Clouds of Xeen could later be linked with its follow-up, Darkside of Xeen, into one shared, even larger adventure. On DOS systems, the game offered colorful, if technically undemanding, graphics, but the depth of its systems and the scope of its world were among the most ambitious in the genre.

Clouds of Xeen is still valued by old-school RPG fans for its generosity, amount of content, and inventive sci-fi and fantasy twist at the end of the story. For new players, entry is hampered by the dated interface and the need for manual mapping, yet it remains one of the high points of the Might and Magic series and an example of how well the linking of two separate games into one large whole could work. The series was created by Jon Van Caneghem, whose studio New World Computing was at the time among the most prolific creators of classic PC RPGs, while simultaneously building the strategy series Heroes of Might and Magic. Clouds of Xeen thus stands at the crossroads between the earlier games in the series, with their firmer, more linear story, and the later titles, which increasingly leaned toward open exploration of a vast world. Linking Clouds of Xeen with Darkside of Xeen into a single, unified World of Xeen was an unusual publishing move at the time, turning two separately sold games into one of the most extensive adventures that PC RPGs offered at the time, and it is still cited today as an example of thoughtful expansion of a game brand.