Ubisoft's Chris Early talks about making the next game in the legendary Might and Magic franchise and why this is one web-browser MMO you can't miss.

Winning and Alliances

Early: Through the mid-point of the game, more is revealed to the player and the objectives slightly change. In the beginning it's all about building up your cities, building up your heroes, starting to make alliances and starting to control territories. In the mid-point of the game, some more of the story arc is revealed and at some point, one of the player alliances will get strong enough and they will actually trigger the end game. So when the end game starts depends upon the progression of the server.

And then the game ends either at six months or when one of the alliances has controlled enough of the artifacts to bring about the end of the game.

ZAM: So one alliance has to trigger the end game and another alliance has to complete whatever requirements the end game needs to win? They're two separate things?

Early: There are two separate things, but they don't have to be different. There's a condition for triggering the end game and it's basically when an alliance gets strong enough they can trigger the beginning of the end game. And then, once that end game sequence has been triggered there are new buildings that can be built and there are new quests that can be done to gather the Tears or the artifacts.

And that alliance that triggered it, they might win or they might not. It's up to who at that point controls the most artifacts to cause the game to end. And even if nobody causes the game to end, the game will end at the six-month time frame. And the winner will be that alliance that controlled the most artifacts at that particular point in time.

Fee and Release Date

Early: It's essentially a free-to-play game. There is a subscription that allows you to enhance your play. The subscription is optional, and the way that it works is this: as a free player you're able to build up to three cities and control up to three heroes.

If you want to go over those, you need to then subscribe to the game. The game is currently running for five Euros a month in France and we expect that it will be less than that here in the US to play. Along with the expansion capability you'll have a few more comfort features. A better battle calculator and things like that.

It launches here in the US at the end of July.

Might and Magic: Heroes Kingdoms sounds like an epic browser game, especially with a full six month season and thousands of players. Could this possibly be what will take the Might and Magic franchise into the future? We can't wait to get our hands on it and start building cities and sending our heroes forward in conquest.