Might and Magic V: Darkside of Xeen

Might and Magic V: Darkside of Xeen (1993) represents the grand, explosive narrative climax of the multi-game interstellar blood feud between the archmage Corak and the renegade alien android Sheltem.

Developed and published by New World Computing under the direction of Jon Van Caneghem, Darkside used the polished, point-and-click 256-color VGA engine from Isles of Terra and Clouds of Xeen. However, it leaned into a noticeably darker, more bizarre, and volcanic aesthetic, trading the lush meadows of the upper side for shadow-soaked landscapes, vampire covens, and sci-fi anomalies.

The Narrative: A Stolen Identity on the Night Side

The game takes place on Darkside—the perpetually dark, volcanic underbelly of the flat, coin-shaped artificial nacelle world of XEEN.

Following the breadcrumbs left behind by Prince Roland, your party teleports to Darkside only to discover that the world has already fallen. A ruthless tyrant has forcefully deposed the human monarch, Queen Kalindra, confined humans to city slums, and laid siege to the great pyramid of the world’s ancient dragon overseer, the Dragon Pharaoh.

• The Return of “Alamar”: The tyrant rules under the pseudonym Lord Alamar. This is a massive node of lore nostalgia for franchise veterans; Alamar was the exact identity Sheltem stole when he overthrew the king of VARN in Might and Magic Book One.
• The Resistance: Aiding a local wizard named Ellinger, your party gathers energy discs to phase Queen Kalindra’s castle back into physical reality. After raiding Castle Blackfang to cure Queen Kalindra of vampirism, she directs you to the Dragon Pharaoh, who reveals that Alamar holds the Ancients’ Cube of Power, using it to steer the flat world of XEEN through the cosmic void.
• The Bittersweet Resolution: Near the city of Necropolis, you locate the crash-landed escape pod of Corak. Following his instructions, you ascend to the sky-city of Olympus, capture Corak’s essence inside a Soul Box, and sneak it straight into Alamar’s throne room. Corak materializes to confront Sheltem. Realizing they are locked in a permanent programmatic stalemate, Corak forces a mutual self-destruct sequence. The catastrophic explosion obliterates both ancient Guardians along with Castle Alamar, finally ending the multi-game threat of Sheltem for good.

Gameplay Reality: High-Tier Escalation

Mechanically, Darkside of Xeen was engineered with the assumption that players were importing a fully leveled, mid-game party from Clouds of Xeen. While you can technically roll a fresh Level 1 party on Darkside, the early-game combat encounters are notoriously, unsparingly brutal.

• The Level 100+ Meta: Unlike Clouds, which gently sunsetted characters around Level 20, Darkside blew the numeric limits of the engine wide open. Characters routinely scaled well past Level 100, gaining access to god-tier spatial magic.
• The Broken Banking Loop: To fund the astronomical gold costs required by high-level training grounds, the game featured a hilariously exploitable banking interest mechanic. Players could deposit their plunder, abuse the calendar’s time-skipping/resting functions, and let compounding interest generate tens of millions of gold pieces to essentially trivialize the late-game economy.
• Environmental Exploration: Level navigation heavily incorporated advanced magic spells like Fly and Teleport, transforming tactical dungeoneering into a high-speed sandbox where you could rain down Starburst meteors onto cyclopes from high above the map grid.

The World of Xeen Fusion: The Unification Quest

When seamlessly merged with Might and Magic IV into the unified World of Xeen format, Darkside added the grand mechanical and narrative epilogue of the flat nacelle world:

                       [Complete Clouds of Xeen Main Quest]
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                      [Complete Darkside of Xeen Main Quest]
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                 [Unlock: The Ultimate Unification Campaign]

Upon the destruction of Alamar/Sheltem, the Dragon Pharaoh tasks your over-leveled party with traveling back and forth between both hemispheres via the ancient travel pyramids.

You must locate four mechanical world-alteration devices hidden in the corners of Cloudside, activate them, and track down an ancient entity named Picard in the Darkside skyroads. Doing so enables you to enter the Clouds of the Ancients to witness the grand royal wedding of Queen Kalindra and Prince Roland. This triggers the activation of the starship’s primary systems, physically folding the flat, two-sided coin world into a beautiful, rounded, self-sustaining organic planet.

Release Platforms & Modern Digital State

• MS-DOS (PC Original): 1993
• NEC PC-9801 / Fujitsu FM Towns: 1994 (Featuring anime-style artwork alterations and full CD-ROM audio spoken voice talkie lines)
• Macintosh Port: 1994

Modern Availability

Just like its predecessor, Darkside of Xeen is preserved in its optimal, unified state on GOG. It comes pre-packaged within the Might and Magic® 6-pack Limited Edition. The bundle automatically launches both titles in the definitive, seamless World of Xeen configuration running out-of-the-box inside a calibrated DOSBox wrapper, complete with full PCM vocal audio, digital world maps, and the original 1993 hint books.