Heroes 6 - Discussion

No, all updates are applied to the original game. Update 1.5 includes "Pirates of the Savage Seas," 1.7 includes "Dance of Death," and 2.1 includes "Shades of Darkness." You can gain access to the corresponding expansions by entering a key. Without entering a key, the expansion will still be present (installing the patch also installs the expansion), but you won't be able to play it. I've also heard that there are standalone "Shades of Darkness" versions 2.0 that are updated to 2.1 and become a mix of everything that was released over the two years.