Friends,

We wish you a Happy New Year! As a gift from us, enjoy the HotA 1.8.0 update. This version features not one, but two major innovations at once.

The first one is, of course, the new town, the third one to be introduced in Horn of the Abyss: the Bulwark. The long and winding road from its conception to release took us almost two decades. It is now finished, and you can finally play as the faction that has been part of our project throughout its history. The place the Bulwark is found at on the world map has also been featured in the world of Might & Magic; now we offer a journey there to Heroes III players as well. The Bulwark's inhabitants represent the peoples living on the frozen over island of Vori: Snow Elves, Jotunns, Yeti and Kobolds. They are joined by their staunch allies, Argali and Mammoths. Their courage and unusual abilities, which they owe to the mysterious forces lurking in the eternal snows, are the stuff of legends and songs.

Work on the campaign, poised to tell you about the history of Vori from ancient times to the present of Enroth, is still ongoing; this time around, however, we decided against postponing the town's release for this reason alone. In a few months, you will learn this story, already being well-versed in the Bulwark's gameplay.

The second major new feature is the extended event system, designed to help map creators implement even more captivating scenarios. Now you can create events and quests in Seer Huts, whose course may depend on intricate conditions and have a wide variety of effects. Through variables, events can influence each other, allowing the player's choices to alter the map's entire future behavior. A user-friendly graphical interface has been developed to make and handle these events. This development took us over two years, and we are proud to share the results with you.

Moreover, there are a handful of other interesting and useful things in store for you:
- a number of new features in the template editor;
- new visitable objects and decor for the adventure map;
- a new secondary skill — Runes, allowing heroes to boost their troops as the battle progresses;
- single-player scenarios introducing you to the new features;
- fixes for various bugs and visual flaws.

For more information, see the changelog: https://download.h3hota.com/upd/changelogs/eng.txt

Download HotA 1.8.0: https://h3hota.com/en/download

We wish you enjoyable holidays! Meanwhile, our work continues. Do expect good news!