LaBoule, the Heroic Corner administrator, has posted a Heroes V preview based on version 0.8 (pre-release). The preview is in Russian; here are some highlights:

  • The number of bugs has dropped dramatically compared to the beta; there are still a few , but none of them are critical. Performance has also been considerably improved.
  • The font has been changed to an italic one, and there are now much more menu options, including autosave, quick combat, and a number of performance tweaks, although not all are implemented.
  • It is possible to view the "message log" - essentially a transcript of the pre-mission cinematic.
  • The horse cursor is back.
  • There are now tutorial messages, which only pop up once and can be toggled off. There is no separate tutorial map: the first campaign mission is essentially a tutorial.
  • It is now possible to divide stacks at the beginning of the battle, and by default the game proposes a 50:50 split.
  • All three war machines are now available for purchase in towns, but two "non-native" machines are more expensive than the "native" one.

The game was tested on a laptop with 1.25 GB of memory, a Pentium M 1.6 GHz (roughly equivalent to Pentium 4 2.4 GHz), and a Radeon X300SE with 64 MB of video memory.