Notes:Might and Magic IV
This page contains notes for the game Might and Magic IV.
Scrapped Concepts for Darkside Mentioned in Might and Magic IV's Text
Although it could be completed as a single standalone game, Might and Magic IV: Clouds of Xeen was designed to be installed on a harddrive with Might and Magic V: Darkside of Xeen to make one larger game world with a third storyline and ending, bringing the two games together. IV was released approximately a year before V. By the time Darkside was released, it is clear that several ideas conceived at the time of Clouds were scrapped. Since these were mentoned by NPCs in Clouds, it leaves unsolved mysteries. Some of this may have been a result of marketing Darkside as a standalone game rather than requiring the purchase and completion of Clouds beforehand to play it.
- 1 - Pyramids
There is one pyramid outside each town in Clouds. Without Darkside being installed, these pyramids are inaccessible. If Darkside is installed on the same harddrive as Clouds, using one of these pyramids transfers the party from Clouds to Darkside. However, all four pyramids lead the party to a sole starting pyramid outside the first town, Castleview, making them a bit superfluous and anticlimatic. The rest of the pyramids on Darkside are broken and unuseable. At the time of Clouds' development, it was likely that there would have been no broken pyramids on Darkside and that each of the pyramids in Clouds would have taken the party to a corresponding position on Darkside.
There are also two lines spoken by Clouds NPCs mentioning how these pyramids would have been activated:
"Roland took the key to the pyramids with him on his trip of Darkside of Xeen." "One of the Dungeons, Two of the Towers, the Southern Sphinx, and all of the pyramids cannot be entered without a visit to the Darkside."
If Darkside is installed, the party can readily enter the pyramids without any sort of key or an initial visit to the Darkside. The only way that the party can visit the Darkside without entering the pyramids is a trip through the cavern at the bottom of the Volcano Cave. The difficulty level of the Volcano Cave and Dragon Cave in the lava region are actually more difficult than the final boss' castle, hinting that these regions should sequentially follow his defeat. At the bottom of the Volcano Cave is the hidden underground town of Shangri-La, containing a tunnel which strangely leads to the bottom of Castle Alamar (Darkside's final stage) and is nearly useless in terms of gameplay.
From these obversations, the following theory may be surmised: When Clouds of Xeen was designed, the pyramids were not the initial way to enter the Darkside. The party was required to pass through the tunnel in Shangri-La to Darkside, likely arriving at a location other than the dungeon of Castle Alamar. The entire region of Darkside would not be accessible at this time. In this limited region, the party would find Roland's key to the pyramids. They would return either back through the cave to Shangrai-La and access the pyramids from Clouds' side, or start accessing them right away on Darkside. The map of Darkside was probably divided into various isolated regions and each pyramid lead to a different region (rather than all of them leading to the same pyramid in the starting town on Darkside). Therefore, it was required at some point to use each respective pyramid from Clouds. It it also a wonder why each pyramid is located next to a city.
The fact that a key was required to enter the pyramids like the rest of the dungeons, makes one wonder if each pyramid was intended to be some sort of Sci-Fi dungeon lying in the center of the earth between both sides, such as was within the pyramids in the previous title, Might and Magic III. (Further evidence of this may be the large number of unused Sci-Fi Themes found on Darkside's official soundtracks.) [1] [2]
- 2 - Lord Xeen's Scepter
This item is acquired by defeating the final boss, Lord Xeen, in Clouds, and only has a function in completing the third end game (accessed when Clouds and Darkside are installed on the same harddrive). However, judging by one of the tavern texts in Clouds, this item was going to have a completely different or additional gameplay function:
"Xeen's scepter will allow you to stay on Darkside as long as you want when the moons are aligned."
Even without the scepter in inventory, Might and Magic V has no limitation as to how long the party can stay on the Darkside.
- 3 - Unfinished Concept About Crodo
There is tidbit in a Clouds tavern which is never elaborated about the backstory of Crodo, one of the main NPCs of Clouds, who strangely never gets mentioned again in Darkside or the third combined game:
"Crodo was not born on Xeen."
- 4 - Party Members Carried Over from Might and Magic III?
At the end of Might and Magic III: Isle of Terra, the party pursues the main villain Sheltem in a spaceship. In Darkside of Xeen, it is learned that this spaceship reached Xeen. A text on Sheltem's computer in Darkside, makes one wonder if the original idea was to have an option of carrying your party over from Might and Magic III to IV (as was done from Might and Magic I to II):
“My sensors indicate that the main ship passed through the atmosphere of the other side of the world and burned up, but not before safely beaming the Terran natives to the surface.”
- Gamearchiver 08:53, 16 October 2023 (UTC)
