Might and Magic

Might and Magic is one of the founding series of computer role-playing games, created by New World Computing under Jon Van Caneghem. The studio drew on earlier dungeon crawlers but shaped its own recipe: first-person, grid-based movement through dungeons and turn-based battles fought by a whole party of adventurers arranged in front and back rows. Players assembled a group of characters from different classes and led them through sprawling fantasy worlds full of towns, dungeons, roadside ambushes and random encounters. What set the series apart was its light-hearted tone, dry humor and a gradually revealed science-fiction undercurrent — the world of Might and Magic turns out to be far stranger and more technological than it first appears, distinguishing it from more po-faced rivals such as Wizardry.

Gameplay kept evolving from one installment to the next. Might and Magic VI: The Mandate of Heaven brought a return to smoother movement through a continuous 3D landscape and is still regarded by many players as the series' high point, pairing a vast open world with an accessible combat system and a tone that never took itself too seriously. The following VII: For Blood and Honor leaned further into factional politics and added a reputation system, while VIII: Day of the Destroyer and IX struggled with technical issues and a cooler reception, IX in particular suffering from a rushed release and a string of bugs that had to be patched after launch.

Beyond the numbered mainline, the series became just as well known for its spin-off Heroes of Might and Magic, a turn-based strategy game set in the same universe that eventually built a fan base of its own, in many respects overtaking the popularity of its parent series. Smaller offshoots followed too, such as the action-puzzle hybrid Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes on Nintendo DS, which combined tactical symbol-matching with RPG progression. The publishing history was turbulent: New World Computing belonged to 3DO, and after that company's collapse the Might and Magic brand passed to France's Ubisoft, which went on to develop mainly the strategy branch.

Might and Magic is remembered today as one of the series that shaped the computer RPG genre through the eighties and nineties, blending exploration and humor with strategy spin-offs that eventually reached a wider audience than the classic dungeon crawls ever did, and it left its mark on a whole generation of later RPGs.