Heroes VII

Necropolis screen:
https://mmh7.ubi.com/en/blog/post/view/the-city-of-the-spider-cult

Not bad.

In the comments, it was mentioned that Ubisoft officially announced that Heroes of Might and Magic V is a non-canonical representative of the world of Ashan, which made things a bit uncomfortable.

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No, actually, I can understand them. They just needed to think things through from the beginning, instead of creating all sorts of nonsense that they later declare non-canonical.

I didn't understand. Could you please quote the message?

instead of creating all sorts of nonsense

What nonsense?

Well, okay, it's not the main point. There are some elements of it in the plot and everything else.

Could you provide at least one example?

Ah, well, okay. Personally, I was quite taken aback that Findan became the king of Erathia. Handing out royal titles to just any general, without any noble lineage, is quite strange. A little later, a similar situation occurred with Duncan. Well, at least there you can explain it, since Duncan has a good pedigree... But still, it's an extremely strange move on the part of Isabel.

Is that all? And because of that, they declared the entire plot "non-canonical," or am I misunderstanding?

Can you give me at least one example?

For example, consider the intellectual abilities of Queen Isabelle.

A little later – a similar situation with Duncan.

Wasn't it Frida who became queen, and she is, in fact, the cousin of Nicholas, the previous king (and also marked by Elrath)? Everything is quite logical here.

No, I'm a Heroes fan. I honestly have no idea what their reasoning was. And I doubt they declared the ENTIRE plot non-canonical; that's just impossible. I was just expressing my personal opinion.

Oh, well, never mind. It won’t work anyway; they’re just wasting their time.

Perhaps they did it this way to avoid a situation like Blizzard's retcons. I always remember the story with Garona:
Initially, she was half-orc, half-human, which perfectly matched the timeline and was fine. Later, Blizzard decided to change the dates, making it so that the orcs attacked immediately after opening the portal to Azeroth, which automatically made Garona a baby. Then they came up with a clever excuse – Garona is half-drakei, not human, but drakei look like humans, so there's almost no difference. And then the expansion for the third Warcraft came out, where we saw that drakei don't quite look like humans. And then they came up with a new amazing excuse, saying that yes, she is still half-orc, half-drakei, and Gul'dan magically changed her appearance to make her look half-orc, half-human so she could gain the trust of humans. Because, of course, it would be very stupid of him to give her a completely human appearance.
By making the entire plot non-canonical, they avoid the need to make such retcons in case they miss something.

Yeah, Ples, Frida became queen, but I kind of figured from the start that it was all about Duncan. I mean, he was crowned, and Frida just married him. But if I'm wrong, that's okay. Although, I still don't understand Isabel's decision, as she stubbornly ignores her royal duties, trying to pass them on to someone else.

The decision to relinquish the crown to someone else was her best idea during her entire reign. I would even say it was the only sensible idea she ever had.

The plot of the campaigns in Heroes 5 is completely canonical. The plot of the single-player scenarios (like "A Tear for Ossir," "The Last Flight of the Falcon") is also canonical, but it is presented as a subjective account from the main character of the scenario. However, some of the creature descriptions in the original game, not including the expansions, are non-canonical (Rakshasas are not spirits, Minotaurs are not slaves, etc.). The same goes for the appearance of some creatures (Liches are not skeletons, Black Dragons have eyes on their wings, etc.). Gremlins, in general, seem to no longer exist (although I'm not entirely sure about that yet).

Liches are not skeletons.

I certainly thought that liches looked ridiculous in the fifth game, but the new version is even worse because now they are just bluish and bald old men.