Might and Magic Developer Diary #1

Ubisoft's official Might and Magic website has been updated with a developer diary entitled "Revamping the Might & Magic Universe", in which content director Erwan Le Breton reveals why certain changes to the popular RPG setting are necessary. A snippet:
Why did Ubisoft decide to revamp the M&M universe?

There are several reasons for this.

1/ The world used as a background for the Might & Magic games has often changed from one title to the next (Varn, Cron, Terra, Xeen and then Axeoth with Enroth, Erathia, Jadame, Cheh'dian, etc.) As a result the consistency between all the M&M games was a little weak and the overall background was vague, if not flat-out confusing at times. We want to have a single, deep world that's consistent across the board and has layers of story and content that players can just dive into.

2/ There was just so much information in the world that it was difficult for new players to really embrace everything that was there. The mass of backstory and continuity was almost intimidating, and we wanted to create a world that new players could enjoy as well.

3/ As much as we enjoyed the original M&M worlds, they had a certain science fiction undertone, while we really wanted to focus on the fantasy aspects the (might) and (magic), as it were. Those games were also (lighter) in tone than what we had in mind for the new generation of M&M games.

Again, we really loved what was done in the past, so it simply made sense to respect that and build our world from the ground up, focusing on capturing the core essence of what drew as all back to Axeoth over and over, rather than try to modify things that people really loved and enjoyed.