Forge town in Horn of the Abyss officially announced
An extensive interview with the HotA Crew team was published on the Heroes Community forum, officially confirming that work on Forge is underway.
It’s an incredible story — 27 years after its first concepts, Forge is returning to the most acclaimed mod in history, this time in collaboration with Gregory Fulton, one of the lead designers of Heroes III.
Key details about Horn of the Abyss Forge:
- The project is still in an early stage of development and won’t be released anytime soon
- Theme: an evil technological faction
- Terrain: lava
- Playstyle: expensive army, but very powerful units
- Forge will not be available by default on standard random maps or scenarios — it will appear in campaigns, special maps, and can be unlocked in the map editor
- Collaboration with Archon Studio, Forge will also appear in the board game version, just like Factory and Bulwark
The heroine Zeestral has been revealed, created by Gregory Fulton, and she has an important connection to one of the iconic Heroes III characters
In the screenshot below, you can likely see a level 7 Forge unit — it looks like a mecha-zilla-behemoth
This is fantastic news for the entire Heroes III community. Forge is making a comeback as a fully-fledged faction, and the team plans to continue developing the project and delivering new content for years to come.
Only weeks after the sketches and artwork were released by Gamespot, an article by Michael Mullen was spotted on the very site that had first distributed the images. Mullen had stated that through sources at 3do, NWC, and Greg Fulton, that the Forge was basically history. Removed due to the uprising against the Forge.
WoG Folder – All HoMM mods in one place
I’m beyond excited for this. I thought that Factory would be a spiritual succesor to Forge, and now with actual Forge being announced… it all nicely connects. Mechanics with their flamethrowers will serve as donors (hopefully only their gear) to Pyros, what’s left of Factories on Jadame would be repurposed by Kastore to build Forges. I like how one concept morfs into another, with Factory retroactively serving as a transitional form of Forge.
I gotta say, though, with Juggernauts and Dreadnoughts being in Factory already, thus mecha-behemoth serving as, possibly, Forge’s new 7tth tier unit, I’m a tiny bit worried about this new-old town being based on Stronghold too much. Orignally Grunts (Foot soldiers) and Stingers (Bruisers) were supposed to be based on Stronhold’s units, Goblins and Ogres respectively. With Behemoth it’d make 3 out of 7 units based on existing ones from 1 particular other faction. Unless, of course, HotA Team does their magic and reinvents some creatures to diversify them.
You will be able to make it available in the map editor on any scenario or random map template you want! I am sure it will be quite easy to do so and the HOTA team will provide instructions.
Not available on standard scenarios and random maps? Why?? 🙁
I mostly play single scenarios, that’s too bad… 🙁
“by default”
It’ll most likely be OP, just like the original Forge was meant to be.