Heroes of Might and Magic II: The Succession Wars is a turn-based strategy game developed by New World Computing and published by The 3DO Company on 1 October 1996 for MS-DOS and Windows, followed by a classic Mac OS version in 1997. Jon Van Caneghem directed and designed it, and the soundtrack was written by Paul Romero, Rob King and Steve Baca, with Romero as the main producer.
PC Gamer US named it 1996's best turn-based strategy game, although it lost several other strategy awards that year to Civilization II. The 1997 expansion The Price of Loyalty added four new campaigns, and the 1998 Gold edition bundled everything with 30 community-made maps.
The game is still easy to get running. The current GOG Gold edition runs the original DOS game through DOSBox and also includes the optional Windows version. Separately, the fan project fheroes2 rebuilds the engine as open-source, multiplatform software; its version 1.0 came out on 21 December 2022.12
Names and releases
| Region | Title on the box | Platform | Date | Publisher | Src |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NA | Heroes of Might and Magic II: The Succession WarsMS-DOS and Windows. | MS-DOS | Oct 1, 1996 | The 3DO Company | 1 |
| NA | Heroes of Might and Magic II: The Succession WarsClassic Mac OS version. | Mac | April 1997 | — | 1 |
| NA | Heroes of Might and Magic II: The Price of LoyaltyExpansion pack: four campaigns, new artifacts and map locations, improved editor. | Windows | 1997 | The 3DO Company | 1 |
| NA | Heroes of Might and Magic II GoldBase game, The Price of Loyalty and 30 community-made maps. | Windows | 1998 | The 3DO Company | 1 |
| EU | Heroes of Might and Magic II: The Succession WarsMS-DOS and Windows. | MS-DOS | 1996 | The 3DO Company | 1 |
Also known as: Heroes of Might and Magic II Gold WW1
Box art by region
NA Heroes of Might and Magic II: The Succession Wars
Box art © its publishers, shown to identify each release. Scans: Wikipedia.
Version differences
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ContentThe Price of LoyaltyGold
The Price of Loyalty expansion added four campaigns, new artifacts, scenario maps and map locations, a better map editor and a Necromancer shrine for raising the dead. The Gold edition combines it with the base game and 30 fan-made maps.1
Translations
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German Official
—MS-DOSReleased · complete
German text and audio are included in the GOG Gold edition.2
-
French Official
—MS-DOSReleased · complete
French text and audio are included in the GOG Gold edition.2
-
Polish Official
—MS-DOSReleased · complete
Polish text and audio are included in the GOG Gold edition.2
Where to play legally today
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GOG Purchase
How to run it today
Buy Heroes of Might and Magic 2: Gold on GOG. It runs on Windows 10 and 11 through DOSBox and also includes the optional Windows version, the manual and the soundtrack. The open-source fheroes2 project rebuilds the engine from scratch with high-resolution graphics, improved AI and bug fixes; it uses the original game's resources, and its authors recommend buying the game on GOG or the Ubisoft Store (the free demo also works).
- fheroes2 on GitHub github.com
Reception
Computer Gaming World gave it 5/5 and GameSpot 8.2/10. PC Gamer US named it the Best Turn-Based Strategy Game of 1996 and, in 1998, ranked it the seventh-best computer game ever. Sales of the series passed 1.5 million by December 1999.1
Sources
Checked: 2026-10-13Text reviewed: 2026-10-13
Spotted a mistake? Write to atlas@old-games.net.