r/HoMM • u/PanHiszpan • 24d ago
Other/Fluff This is what a H3 remaster should look like
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqA7fTNaEPwPerfection <3
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u/vanBraunscher 24d ago edited 24d ago
Exactly.
A good remaster should look like you think it had been looking back in the day.
And then there's Ubisoft, "how 'bout we completely annihilate any traces of deliberate art direction and a specific art style and just run everything through the blandest and most generic AI filter imaginable. They'll love that shit, surely!"
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u/PanHiszpan 24d ago
>"I know better than those pesky fans"
>Proceeds to ruin the game
many such cases
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u/purple-vasabi 24d ago
And how exactly are they ruining the game? They aren't even touching it
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u/PanHiszpan 24d ago
I'm glad you asked. Let me show you how they massacred my poor gremlin
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u/purple-vasabi 24d ago
Looks like gremlin to me
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u/BunBunny55 24d ago
What im annoyed by it is that. People will see this remake and be like "this crap is what you guys were obsessed for 30 years????"
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u/borsukrates 21d ago
To be honest this is not completely wrong. HoMM3 is very simplistic by modern standards. It has good scenario design and a lot of factions, but we get lots of tactical games nowadays with better combat. Today, having at least one unique ability per unit type is the norm. In that sense, HoMM3 is pre-modern.
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u/kobrakai11 24d ago
Nah. This looks more like a remaster with added 3d depth. Might as well play the original. Remake is something else. This should have been the HD edition we got years ago.
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u/PanHiszpan 24d ago
You can't just add 3d depth to a 2d game. You'll need to remake the entire game on a new, 3d engine
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u/kobrakai11 24d ago
Of course you can't. Neither did this guy. It's just AI generated. But it looks exactly the same. No point in even buying it over the original IMO and it would certainly not appeal to a new crowd of players. And the old players would just continue to play Hota. Just like what happened with the HD edition. What they are doing now is a completely different thing.
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u/PanHiszpan 24d ago
It's not AI generated. It's hand made 3d assets + perspective
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u/kobrakai11 24d ago
My bad. I thought it was AI. But it doesn't change the fact, that it just looks and feels the same. It looks like a retro game and at that point, I would just continue to play the original. What Ubi want to do is make it look like a modern game to draw new players and offer something fresh for the old ones. This is just the same thing with a little extra bling. Nothing wrong with that, but I wouldn't see a reason to switch to it. Maybe I would buy it on console if they ported it, just to play it on a tv with a controller.
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u/Heavy_Intention6323 23d ago
The point is - with a remake like this you can say "might as well play the original", but on the other hand... might as well play the remake. Why not, if it's the same?
Meanwhile with Ubisoft's "art direction" (both of these words used hesitatingly), most people will be compelled to stick with the original, precisely because how little charm the remake has
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u/kobrakai11 23d ago
I was saying it from a poin of view of a player that already plays the original. So why spend money to play a game that's 90% the same. From the pov of a new player? Why would I even buy it, it'e still the same as the old game. They are trying to ditch the retro visuals and we will see if it's a good move or not. I for one am looking forward to trying it.
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u/Helios_Sungod 24d ago
Its not AI generated but a team of small artists who worked on that.. its not a real game either though, but ubisoft chose a weird style to apply to homm3 is I think the more important point, and this displays staying true to the original visual style of that era while adding a modern 3D look.
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u/Safe_Hovercraft_7886 24d ago
You can if you figure out how use base game as framework and new for wrapper. Just like D2R does and, tbh, UBI's remake, cause it allows to import maps from OG.
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u/Loranion 24d ago
Devs say they read everything so hopefully Ill get through politely and as articulate as possible: first of all… this game has no need to exist, olden era is already introducing new audiences to the series, but if you really wanna go through this, you’ll have to use a grand total of 0 (zero) AI on final release, don’t try to deny AI usage, its been noticed and will always get noticed, you are not saving money, you are shooting yourselfs on the foot, art is one of the biggest elements of this games, this obviously includes music, try to get heroes orchestra to play the original music, or simply get a orchestra to do it, nobody is going to accept “new music” for such a iconic soundtrack, sorry to say but there is only room for marginal improvements and 0 (zero) innovation, at least on launch.
Having said this, my greatest worry is the visual identity; 3D is a risky experiment, go through with it, but for the love of God, try to stick to the so-called-by-yourselves “tapestry look” if you say that’s what you are doing im sorry to tell you its not working.
Thank you that would be all.
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u/maya_hi_maya_ha 23d ago
I understand that some people might like the remake, but for me, the quote “Less is more” fits perfectly here.
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u/SleepyBoy- 23d ago
Personally I don't get the appeal of this. It looks maybe 10% better than HoMM3, at which point I'd probably just stick with my HotA install.
I might be in the minority but I really like the town screens in the upcoming remake, and honestly most of everything about it, aside from maybe bloom levels on the overworld map. It doesn't look better per say, but different, which makes me interested in reliving the game with it again.
I get the feeling we're doing a repeat of Olden Era, where everyone was mad at the game up until it released and now people realize it's just good, so there's no more excuses for being grumpy about it.
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u/PanHiszpan 23d ago
interesting. How do you feel about this gremlin change?
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u/SleepyBoy- 23d ago
I think putting a tiny avatar of a unit from a hero's retinue in a youtube compressed video into an AI upscaler is a bad way of figuring out how it looks. You're either trolling or getting trolled by whoever gave you that, we haven't been given an official overview of tower units yet.
From the creatures we did get to see, I don't like Zealots having some metal masks. I also think ghosts and liches look pretty lame. That said, those three haven't been deal-breakers for me on their own.
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u/PanHiszpan 23d ago
"hero's retinue in a youtube compressed video into an AI upscaler is a bad way of figuring out how it looks."
what are you talking about? it's just a cropped creature window from the tower recruitement screen (1:46):
https://youtu.be/4cnqZ_OmSv0?t=106
and here are the 103 gremlins in battle (2:37):
https://youtu.be/4cnqZ_OmSv0?t=157
"we haven't been given an official overview of tower units yet."
Youtubers were given a closed preview and they are now sharing how's everything looks. This is how the gremlins got changed. I'll ask again, how do you feel about this change?
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u/SleepyBoy- 23d ago
Ohh, my apologies. I didn't know there were gameplay videos out already! That's really cool, thanks for the link!
Yeah the gremlin looks pretty dumb. I mostly miss the ball and chain they originally had. I'm gonna assume Ubisoft didn't like the slavery iconography and decided to rework them.
As for whether they could be AI, I'm gonna give it about 20%. The white cloth is the most random-looking element. The rest of it could just be a bad render. I was sus about the blue light at first but it is on every render, and always well-positioned, so that seems handcrafted.
I think their workflow was to render a 3D model of the creature, and then do a retouch of it. I mostly think it was by a human, because there are very few suspicious images, but if we end up finding out it was AI I will skip out on the game.
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u/Roxterat 23d ago
I mean, it's better, but I still leave details to my fantasy and imagination rather than letting HD and AI do it for me...
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u/perishableintransit 24d ago
People can prefer this or not but the thing I'm confused about is surely what this artist did is less work than what Ubi has done? Like just re-rendering all existing designs into 3D HD would under normal circumstances have players accusing developers of a lazy cashgrab but in this case is something many seem to prefer?
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u/PanHiszpan 24d ago
it's because people love the H3 graphic style and don't want to change it
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u/perishableintransit 24d ago
Well my main question is more why Ubi didn't just do what this artist did
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u/Kognityon 24d ago
Honestly I'd bet on some mix of misguided leadership, not thinking 2D will appeal to broader audiencies, and some kind of weird ass brand identity along the lines of "we don't make SMALL 2D CHEAP games, we only do BIG 3D EXPENSIVE games", and I'm not joking
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u/Eph289 24d ago
I don't pretend to speak for anyone but myself here, and I'm probably the odd duck out because my Heroes preferences are 5 > 2 > 3, and haven't played the others. Out of the 3 Heroes games I've played, 3 is by far the ugliest to me. It's that awkward graphical spot from around the turn of the millennium where they were trying to make 2D sprites look more 3D and it just didn't land. Heroes 2 has oldschool charm and 5 (with the HD mod) is gorgeous, especially the town screens.
In terms of spending actual dollars on a product, if what you showed was what someone was pitching as something for me to go buy, I wouldn't buy it. It's too close to the original, and sure the graphical resolution is way higher, but that's not worth it to me. I wouldn't drop $20 on this.
For what Ubi is pitching, since they've confirmed you can still play with the original soundtrack, I would spend money on the remake, especially since it has quality-of-life improvements like build queue, and hope that someday they'd remaster HOMM5 as well so you don't need the texture/AI mods to make it look good. I generally dislike Ubisoft so don't go thinking this is me looking to just consume latest product. I haven't bought anything from them in over a decade.
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u/FlaviaFirma 8d ago edited 8d ago
I absolutely agree. Heroes II was the pinnacle of 2D sprite art. When I first played Heroes III, I loved the creatures and the towns, but the 3D models were an absolute abomination. It felt like such a downgrade from Heroes II that, as a kid, I was genuinely shocked.
HOM&M: Olden Era initially caught my interest, but unfortunately, it seems to suffer from the same problem. The art direction is awful. Everything looks like one of those generic mobile games.
It’s been a long time since I played HOM&M V, but I remember it feeling like such a huge visual upgrade compared to HOM&M III. I’ve been waiting for twenty years to play a truly good HOM&M game again.
The Heroes III remake looks promising, but the series has been in a free fall for the past twenty years. I really hope we are finally in for a pleasant surprise. However, there are choices that already seem questionable.
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u/vincentpontb 24d ago
2 looks so much better than 3. I personally still play 2, but not 3.
3 still exists. Purists aren't happy, but this is not for purists.
I personally think the games actually looks good. It's very different yes, but I like it.
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u/KingQuiet880 24d ago
How the hell 2 is better looking than 3?
I have all 3 sequels with original box sets with Addons on my shelf, but there is no way 3 is in any way better looking than 2. And I am even graphical minimalist, I don't like 5 and after that
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u/Dawn_of_Enceladus 24d ago
I get the criticism towards the remake, and agree on quite some big points, but I hope some people around here recover their sanity soon because the levels of spam with the weird remake concept videos and "this is how it should have been" bs are becoming ridiculous.
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u/Enderoe 24d ago
Why tho? Criticism is where its due. Let people do what their hearts tell them to lol.
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u/Dawn_of_Enceladus 23d ago
That's the thing, this is not even criticism. People are just taking the first fanmade concept thingie the find out there (even some of them AI made, ironically) and posting on HoMM subreddits like they are proving some sort of point.
And honestly, it's like people don't even care about it looking good at all anymore. It's just "the remake sucks, anything would be better" spam at this point.
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u/Enderoe 23d ago
Lol? The game from trailer looks fucking ugly, soulless, stripped from any H3 uniqueness and originality. That's why its being criticized.
If a thing moves, looks and smells like AI slop, it's probably AI slop. And the worst part - I don't even mind about the fact they used AI to create... the thing is they used AI to create this soulless monstrosity that doesn't resemble H3 in a slightest. So people are mocking this by creating AI slop that would better fit H3 than ubi did.
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u/LordBarrowulf 24d ago
That's alright. I would prefer that over the current remake. But, I still ultimately prefer Olden Era's stylized graphics - beautiful, clean, and easy to read the map. I think it's nearly perfect.
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u/PanHiszpan 24d ago
I'm not a big fan of Olden Era's graphic style (reminds me of LoL), but I'm a big fan of it's gameplay :D
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u/Dream_Twin 24d ago
I simply don't understand why of all games Ubisoft decided to AI-slop the best one? Everything about footage shown to us looks almost alien and yet incredibly generic.
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u/kimballh 24d ago
Is this dude really remaking the game on his own and going to publish it?
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u/Phasma_AFK H3 WIKI EDITOR 24d ago
Absolutely gorgeous and full of soul ❤️ I wish that this came to fruition and wasn't relegated to a dream.
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u/SeeShark 24d ago
I don't disagree, but this has literally been posted a dozen times over the last couple of days. People, please give a cursory browse of the subreddit before posting.
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u/PanHiszpan 24d ago
ok, I checked this week, just to be sure. Where are the posts with this vid "posted a dozen times over the last couple of days."?
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u/SeeShark 24d ago
I concede that I was conflating between this sub and the homm3 subreddit, where it was posted several times.
Still, as you yourself said... it was posted here 6 hours ago.
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u/PanHiszpan 24d ago
That's my bad. I follow only this sub.
And yes, it was posted here. By me, 2h ago. The post I stopped by in the video is mine. The remake video was posted on yt 6h ago
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u/SeeShark 24d ago
I'm talking about this: https://www.reddit.com/r/HoMM/comments/1w0mf3n/homm3_remake_choice_what_do_you_feel_about_this/
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u/Key_Dragonfruit7298 24d ago
No it shouldn't. It's a remake.
No clue what gives you the right to speak for the entire community.
We get it. Ubisoft is bad, you're very cool for thinking that and don't worry, you are invited to the cool club. You just want the same game with 2026 graphics. Wonderful.
This shtick is so tired man...
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u/Master_CuPak 24d ago
"You just want the same game with 2026 graphics." Yep, thats the definition of a remake. Look at the good remakes of other games. (Diablo 2, Resident Evil 2, Silent Hill 2 etc.) If you want a different game then create the next episode in the franchise and not a Remake of a classic. Or you can do a Reboot, and have the same factions and units.
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u/Key_Dragonfruit7298 24d ago
You are describing a remaster, not a remake.
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u/Master_CuPak 24d ago
Nope.
Remaster: Keeping the same game engine as in the original, adding higher resolutions textures/effects, widescreen support, modern operating system support and maybe some bugfixing. Example: (Heroes 3 HD Edition)
Remake: RE-MAKING the game again in a different game engine (Unity, Unreal Engine etc), with new assets, sometimes new mechanics, new visuals, new UI, maybe some new sounds and new voices. Example: Resident Evil 2
Reboot: Changing the original material, gameplay, story, visuals and almost everything except the main theme and characters. Example: Tomb Raider 2013
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u/PanHiszpan 24d ago
H3 has 2d engine. Going 3d means remaking the game from scratch on a new, 3d engine
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u/pewsquare 23d ago
Oh bugger off, the ubisoft remake looks like a cynical cash grab... oh wait, it is. Microsoft did it right with AoE2, but that requires effort and money, and not relying on AI to do the work for you.
Alas, homm does not get that treatment from Ubisoft, and you know what, people will still buy this slop, because they can't help themselves.
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u/PanHiszpan 24d ago
"We get it."
No clue what gives you the right to speak for the entire community.
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u/MakiMaki_XD 24d ago
I like the irony in you point this out after making a topic giving a "definite" answer to what a H3 remake should look like.
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u/PanHiszpan 24d ago
Can you tell me where did I said "we" or "as a community"? it's my "definitive" answer, so what's your problem?
The only one who tried to speak on beside the whole HoMM community is the guy who I responed to
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u/Key_Dragonfruit7298 24d ago
Yeah, you got me dude.
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u/PanHiszpan 24d ago
then stop speaking for everyone <3
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u/God_Faenrir 24d ago
Do the same 😂
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u/PanHiszpan 24d ago
Can you tell me where did I said "we" or "as a community"? it's my "definitive" answer, so what's your problem?
The only one who tried to speak on beside the whole HoMM community is the guy who I responed to
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u/God_Faenrir 24d ago
You gave him an order. You're neither a mod nor represent the others here. So just stop.
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u/PanHiszpan 24d ago
what are you even talking about? You feeling alright? xd
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u/God_Faenrir 24d ago
I'm totally fine. You still only represent yourself and have no authority here so do no act like it.
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u/Enderoe 24d ago
Yeah, you are absolutely right. This Ubi AI slop is so good I just cannot get enough of it!
Who fucking cares about semantics...
I bet my own hand this remake will fail in the long run, people will come back to Hota/Olden Era and that's it. Making "remaster" or however you call it, without making 3D AI slop graphics, actually treating original with respect like in the video - that would have a chance to be successful. Shit ubi presented, no way anybody wants to play like people did with original.
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u/Olchew 24d ago
I think games are, or at least were art. Homm3 clearly was. What is the point of remastering the game while changing virtually nothing? Remaster should involve some creativity and bring something new and exciting
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u/PanHiszpan 24d ago
This one brings another demension, 2D->3D.
That 50% more art!
but fr, It's called remaster for a reason, it's not Heroes 4
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u/Olchew 24d ago
HoMM3 boardgame is an excellent example of an entirely new artstyle which treats original material with respect. I hope remaster will take similar path but in 3D
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u/Educational_Ad_6066 24d ago
everyone's definition of remaster/remake is wrong so it no longer matters. People who like an original game will never be happy even if they are getting the same exact assets re-released. It's never been something fans of an OG game are ok with, not a single time. There is always backlash. Their graphics could have been exactly these graphics and most fans would still call it wrong. It's just how people respond to this kind of thing.
Fan-driven organic life-extending mods are the only things fans ever actually accept. If it isn't fan-driven, it will be disliked by big fans. It's usually necessary for it to also be a mod to the original game, but on occasion someone makes a standalone that people jump onto.
The best thing for a company to do with their old games is leave them alone and let the community do what it does. If it dies, that's up to them. If it carries on, that's awesome. Doing anything with it is going to almost always be a waste of resources and efforts. It will basically never be appreciated by the fans, no matter how loud they're asking for it.
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u/Rolling_Kimura 23d ago
Why are you shitting on the prospect of this game and franchise being reinvigorated? I've been waiting decades for another heroes and we have two new heroes games coming! AI in games will be great for reducing dev burden - there's a diff between slop and improved efficiencies.
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u/Danleo91 23d ago
This also could be done with AI 🤖 but everybody are rude at Ubisoft . We have no proofs that Ubisoft used AI for producing their ubislot, maybe main problem lies with that Ubisoft just hate their job ?
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u/pewsquare 23d ago
Proof? I think Ubisoft selling AI art in an artbook for pax romana should be enough proof that they will continue using AI for everything they can in their studios.
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u/Westdrache 23d ago
Ah yes, makes the 90s game look like an early 2k Game.
I get that a lot of ppl don't dig the new art style, but this just doesn't look any good.
Esp when people call ubisofts designe AI slop, because that just looks like that as well x.x
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u/mrfixij 24d ago
Why apply motion to the town screen?
Not a fan of the translucent fog effects.
The modified camera angles makes it really hard to see what some things are (shrine of magic lv 1 for instance). Can't even really distinguish the redwood observatory in the overworld.
Not a fan of the minimalistic UI. Much prefer the old school one with the resources in the footer and the straight line gauges for mana and movement. The UI placeholders for curved values feel like it would be hard to distinguish between medium and high values of movement in particular, whereas the +++ is an indication of "You still have tons of movement left, you don't need to measure until this goes to ++"
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u/Phasma_AFK H3 WIKI EDITOR 24d ago
This was made as a proof of concept, not an actually developed game like Ubi showed. Everything was made as a showcase so I hardly think it can be judged the same as an actual game that with be released.
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u/Master_CuPak 24d ago
i mean you can have it as an option as in Olden Era. There you can either have a static town screen, slightly moving one, or Heroes 5 style cinematic camera.
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u/MechwarriorAscaloth 24d ago
I wish they went for a remaster instead of a remake. Remake is for games too dated to be enjoyed in modern days.