Contraband Entertainment revealed yesterday that it’s working on the Macintosh conversion of 3DO’s popular strategy game Heroes of Might & Magic IV. The game had been posted previously to Contraband’s project’s page as “Heroin 4 U.”
Contraband Entertainment works on conversions of games for a variety of platforms, including the Mac. They’re also working on their own original title, a survival-horror genre game called Abducted. The company is headed by “Burger Bill” Heineman, a two-decade veteran of the computer games industry whose career spans back to the Atari 2600. Heineman was formerly of Mac game publisher Logicware, among many others.
Heroes of Might & Magic IV’s Mac release will also be published by 3DO, which brought the PC version to market as well. This is not the series’ first appearance on the Macintosh: previous installments have also been published by 3DO, which worked with Evolution Interactive to convert past versions to Mac OS.
Heroes of Might & Magic IV is a turn-based strategy game in which you must build your kingdom and complete quests. You’re immersed in an imaginative fantasy world populated by fierce monsters and other forces in which you are engaged in an epic quest for control of the land. You lead forces into battle using Heroes, special characters who learn different skills in combat, magic, and nobility that help them to better control troops and resources.
3DO bills Heroes of Might & Magic IV as a “reinvention” of the popular franchise, with a new game engine that features a new magic system, new campaigns, new hero-character classes, and gameplay that varies according to how you play.
Contraband lists Heroes of Might & Magic IV at the Alpha development milestone, and said that it will be published this holiday season. Bill Heineman told MacCentral that Contraband is also bringing the game’s editor to the Macintosh — and both will be native for Mac OS X, of course.