Heroes of Might and Magic II: The Price of Loyalty

Heroes of Might and Magic II: The Price of Loyalty (1997) holds a distinct place in strategy history as the very first official expansion pack in the entire Might and Magic franchise.

In a departure from regular development, publisher 3DO outsourced production to Cyberlore Studios rather than keeping it in-house with New World Computing. While it didn’t fundamentally alter the core mechanics or add entirely new character classes, it is widely celebrated for drastically diversifying mission design and introducing a treasure trove of content for seasoned veterans.

The Four Standalone Campaigns

The heart of The Price of Loyalty is its 24-mission campaign suite. Rather than continuing the Succession Wars between Roland and Archibald, it presents four self-contained narrative arcs:

The Price of Loyalty: The premier campaign focuses on an imperial general sent to quell an uprising led by his old friend, Viscount Kraeger. You eventually discover that Kraeger isn’t a simple traitor, but is being ruthlessly mind-controlled by a cabal of dark Necromancers.
Voyage Home: Follows the journey of a noble knight named Gallavant. Shipwrecked by a sudden storm, he must clear out pirate-infested waters to return to his homeland, only to find himself trapped in a brutal civil war where he must choose to support his native lord or his own sister.
Wizard’s Isle: A high-magic sandbox scenario mapping a localized world war between rival magic-users fighting over the “Fount of Wizardry”—a powerful mystical nexus that grants its ruler supreme power over the next millennium.
Descendants: A massive, multi-generational historical epic tracking the rise of the Kingdom of Jarkonas and its centuries-long war of attrition against the rival clan of Harondale.

Mechanical Tweaks & The Infamous Ghost Glitch

Cyberlore introduced several new map locations, artifacts, and structural objects that left a massive imprint on the strategy sandbox:

The Evil Shrine: In a move that drew slight criticism for faction favoritism, the Necromancer was the only class to receive a brand-new town upgrade. Building the Shrine permanently boosted the hero’s Necromancy secondary skill, allowing them to raise massive quantities of skeletons after every successful engagement.
The Barrow Mounds Balance Nightmare: The expansion added the Barrow Mounds as a recruitable neutral location on the adventure map, allowing players to purchase Ghosts. Because Ghosts natively retain the ability to multiply their numbers exponentially based on the exact headcount of the units they kill, players could take a small squad of ghosts, pick on low-tier neutral peasants, and trivially snowball into a game-breaking, un-killable army of thousands within the first few weeks of a match.
Strategic Mission Diversity: To combat the monotony of simply wiping out the enemy on every map, the campaign maps introduced complex win-conditions. Players had to face aggressive turn limits, navigate maps with zero constructible castles (forcing you to survive entirely on wandering neutral mercenary recruits), or fight over tightly clustered resource hubs.

The Artifact Sets & Operatic Audio

The Battle Garb of Anduran: The expansion added 17 powerful new artifacts. Most famously, it experimented with the concept of legendary matching items. Assembling the Helmet of Anduran, Breastplate of Anduran, and the Sword of Anduran combined them into the ultimate artifact set, maximizing your hero’s spell power, attack parameters, and global unit morale.
Expanded Soundtrack: To complement the critically acclaimed operatic audio landscape of the base game, Paul Romero and Rob King returned to record brand-new, theatrical vocal arrangements for the expanded town themes.

Summary & Legacy

The Price of Loyalty proved that a great turn-based expansion didn’t necessarily need to completely reinvent the wheel. By doubling down on creative level design, introducing powerful artifact combinations, and leaning into the high-stakes fantasy lore of Enroth, it successfully extended the life cycle of one of the 90s’ greatest strategy blueprints.

Availability

The Price of Loyalty: May 27 1997
Heroes of Might and Magic II Gold (1998): The expansion was permanently folded into the definitive compilation bundle.
Digital & Remaster Lifecycle: Modern players can access the complete Price of Loyalty campaign pack natively via GOG. It runs flawlessly at high resolutions and smooth frame rates when parsed through the community’s popular fheroes2 open-source engine recreation.