Rebuilding Heroes of Might and Magic [Episode 46]: Reverse Engineering the Campaign Map Format

In this episode of rebuilding Heroes of Might and Magic 1 from scratch, we turn our attention to the campaign map format — cracking open the binary files to understand how the game stores its campaign data.
The video walks through loading five campaign map files (~60KB each for DOS, ~80KB for Windows 95 versions) and using a Python script — informed by the previously reverse-engineered standard map format — to analyze their structure. It turns out the campaign format is refreshingly compact: just six bytes of header before jumping straight into the familiar tile block layout, followed by object records at the end that likely mirror what was already decoded from the original DOS maps.
Along the way, there's an interesting detour into ridgedata.bin, a mysterious file found on the game CD that appears to be a kind of factory-reset memory structure — containing hero records, faction data, starting resources, and blank map tile definitions. It may be a binary blob loaded directly into memory at game startup, though its exact role is still being puzzled out.
The bigger picture: decoding the campaign format opens the door not just to implementing the original Heroes 1 campaign, but potentially to creating new campaigns entirely — or even porting scenarios from Heroes 2 or 3 back to the original engine.

Видео Rebuilding Heroes of Might and Magic [Episode 46]: Reverse Engineering the Campaign Map Format канала The First Hero of Might and Magic