New World Computing

» see nwcomputing.com as it lived, on the wayback machine

~ the obit ~

i played heroes of might and magic 3 in turkish internet cafes around 2002 and 2003. by then the game was already three years old, on its second or third expansion. it sat on every cafe machine that did not have counter-strike loaded. nobody i knew at the time used the words "new world computing". the publisher name on the box, if anyone looked at the box, was 3do. the studio that actually built the thing was a layer further down.

new world computing was founded in 1984 in agoura hills, california by jon van caneghem and his wife michaela, plus mark caldwell. the first might and magic shipped in 1986 for the apple ii, a single-character turn-based rpg with a tile-based dungeon view that ran on machines with 64k of ram. the series ran nine main entries through 2002.

heroes of might and magic 1 in 1995 was the pivot. it was a separate game in the same universe, a fantasy turn-based strategy with a hex map, a town-building economy, a hero with a stack of creatures. it did not blow up immediately. heroes 2 in 1996 was bigger. heroes 3 in february 1999 was the moment everything clicked, 500,000 copies by october 1997 was where the magic series sat, and heroes 3 hit 1.5 million copies by december 1999.

ntn communications had already bought new world in 1996. the 3do company acquired them out of ntn that same year for ten million dollars in stock. new world kept making their games inside 3do's publishing arm. for the next six years it was the closest thing 3do had to a reliable hit franchise.

~ the rap sheet ~

~ the heroes years ~

this part i actually was around for in the cafe form, not the box-on-shelf form. heroes 3 was huge in eastern europe and russia, with the low system requirements and the deep turn-based mechanics landing perfectly on the kind of older pcs that filled internet cafes through the early 2000s. in those days. it ran fine on a pentium 2 with 64mb of ram, which meant it ran fine on every machine i ever booted into in ankara cafes.

the modding scene around heroes 3 became one of the longest-running pc-game communities of the era. the hota (horn of the abyss) mod kept the game in active development long after new world was gone, and the playable base in 2026 still runs hota installs more than the original. that scene was a russian and eastern-european effort almost entirely. it did not need new world to keep going.

~ the 3do collapse ~

by 2002 new world was being squeezed inside 3do's deteriorating finances. might and magic 9 shipped in march 2002 with visible cuts, alongside heroes 4 that same month. 3do laid off most of the studio on april 15 2002 and kept a small team for support work. the publisher was effectively running on fumes for the rest of that year.

this part i was not around for. 3do filed chapter 11 on may 28 2003. the asset auction over the rest of that year is how ubisoft ended up with the might and magic and heroes of might and magic franchises. new world computing as a corporate entity wound down quietly in late 2003 without a press release.

~ what came after ~

ubisoft kept the franchises going under other studios. heroes 5 in 2006 was nival interactive in russia. heroes 6 in '11 was black hole entertainment in hungary. heroes 7 in 2015 was limbic entertainment in germany. the games kept getting made and the brand kept selling, but they did not feel like new world had made them. the design hand that ran from 1986 through 2002 was gone.

this part i actually was around for in the modder form. heroes 3 is still where the active community sits in 2026, twenty-seven years after the original release, mostly because the new world version is the one people remember. ubisoft sells heroes 3 hd on steam alongside the original cd-key version on gog. those are the two ways the studio's actual work stays in circulation now.

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