Might and Magic: Swords of Xeen

Might and Magic: Swords of Xeen
Developer: CATWare Publisher: New World Computing Platform: DOS Released in US: 1995 This game has unused areas.

Might and Magic: Swords of Xeen started life as a modification of Might and Magic: Darkside of Xeen (and it shows) before becoming an official bonus scenario for World of Xeen as of the Might and Magic Trilogy compilation. Given its nature as a mod, it's a bit buggy, a bit clunky, and arguably much harder than either World of Xeen game.

Unused Maps

Maps 50 and 51

These two are an interesting pair.

Map 49, the City of GreyHaven	Map 50, an unused clone

Both maps are odd in that they use the standard Darkside "city" music selection and graphic sets while GreyHaven uses the "castle" music and graphics. (The only town in Swords that uses the Darkside "city" music/graphics is Sand City.) The map technically doesn't match the first-person view, either, but that's due to the map graphic values for castle pathways and town water being the same. They also both keep the names of the maps they were edited from, from Darkside of Xeen... much like "Skyroad B3", which is a map the player can access normally. Oops.

And lastly, for whatever reason, a single Goblin can be found hiding at coordinates 0, 0 on both maps… even though there is no way, outside of using Time Distortion or hex editing, to get in there. Yeah, your guess is as good as ours.

I don't remember Castle Alamar looking so broken…

Moving on to unique qualities, Map 50 seems to be a bizarre mash-up of three completely unrelated game maps, or sections thereof. Something that's unique to this map is that it duplicates itself to the west, though the rooms shift northward by 1 tile every 32 tiles and cut off at Y 15. Once you hit X -127, the map sends you into a void that eventually loops back to the other side of the map, as is the normal functionality of Isles of Terra-engine game maps.

The lower-left section shares the exact same layout of the game's starting city, the City of GreyHaven, but houses none of its events or NPCs. The Oracle computers are also missing from the alcoves in the middle of the hallway. The portcullises that lead into the dragon rooms are still there and fully-functional, though.

The lower-right section is from Castleview, the starting town of Darkside of Xeen. The "flooded room" was Gettlewaithe's encampment in the park and the maze was only accessible through the Castleview Sewers, in that game. Naturally, all interactive objects go missing – including Gattlewaithe and his army of Gremlins and Goblins. (They teleport into the park from 31, 00 when called by certain story events.)

Map 52, Sky Platform	Relevant part of Map 50 in first-person

Lastly, the upper-right section appears to be a copy of the Sky Platform map with its walkways replaced by town gates and its clouds replaced by locked doors. Just like the other areas, none of the scripted events or objects are there.

Map 49, the City of GreyHaven	Map 51, an unused clone

As for Map 51, it's just a basic clone of GreyHaven, much like the southwest part of Map 50... except that Map 51 has it shifted downward by 16 tiles. Aside from lacking anything interactive (aside from more portcullises), it's nothing special, unfortunately.

Unfinished Dungeon

What could have been and never will be...

Map 80 (aka, "City of GreyHaven") appears to be the beginnings of a dungeon that never made it past the basic layout stage. It uses the "tower" tileset, but lacks anything of note, aside from some doors and a handful of downward staircases. Setting a Lloyd's Beacon waypoint here works like normal, but attempting to use Time Distortion to find the exit traps the player's party in the southwest corner of (0,0).

To access the map, load a save file in a hex editor and change the following values:

$3308 - 01 01 ; Player coordinates value
                Changes the player's X/Y coordinate to X01 Y01
$330A - 50    ; Maze ID value
                Places the player on map 80 ($50)

(Source: Original TCRF research)