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fheroes2 installation guide

Requirements

You will need to have a demo version or the full version of Heroes of Might and Magic II game to be able to play. We strongly advise to purchase the original game on GOG or Ubisoft Store platforms.

Alternatively, you can download a free demo version of the game (in English only) using the bundled script. See detailed instructions below.

Installation

Precompiled binaries of the release version are currently available for the following platforms and operating systems:

Alternatively, you can download the precompiled binaries of the latest commit (snapshot) here.

Windows

Windows installer

  • Download one of the following Windows installer packages:
    Windows x64 (64-bit) or
    Windows x86 (32-bit)

  • After downloading the installer, launch it and follow the instructions.

  • During the installation process, you will be prompted to extract game resources from the original game (select this option if you already have a legally purchased copy of the original game installed), or download the demo version of the original game and extract game resources from it (you can also do this later by clicking the appropriate shortcut in the program's group in the Windows Start menu).

  • If you purchased a copy of the original game only after installing fheroes2, you can run the Extract game resources from the original distribution of HoMM2 shortcut in the program's group in the Windows Start menu. This script will try to perform an automatic search for an existing installation of the original game and extract all the necessary resource files. If it can't find an existing installation, you will be prompted to enter the location of the original game manually.

  • As an alternative to the previous step, you can manually copy the subdirectories ANIM, DATA, MAPS and MUSIC (some of them may be missing depending on the version of the original game) from the original game directory to the fheroes2 installation directory.

Windows ZIP archive

  • Download one of the following Windows ZIP archives:
    Windows x64 (64-bit) or
    Windows x86 (32-bit)

  • After downloading the ZIP archive, extract it to a suitable directory of your choice.

  • If you have a legally purchased copy of the original game, run the extract_homm2_resources.bat script supplied in the ZIP archive. This script will try to perform an automatic search for an existing installation of the original game and extract all the necessary resource files. If it can't find an existing installation, you will be prompted to enter the location of the original game manually.

  • As an alternative to the previous step, you can manually copy the subdirectories ANIM, DATA, MAPS and MUSIC (some of them may be missing depending on the version of the original game) from the original game directory to the fheroes2 installation directory.

  • If you don't have a legally purchased copy of the original game, you can download and install the demo version of the original game by running the download_demo_version.bat script supplied in the ZIP archive.

If you see complaints about missing DLLs when running fheroes2, then you may need to install the Microsoft Visual C++ redistributable package. You can download it using the following URLs:

https://aka.ms/vs/17/release/vc_redist.x64.exe - for 64-bit x64 fheroes2 builds;
https://aka.ms/vs/17/release/vc_redist.x86.exe - for 32-bit x86 fheroes2 builds.

macOS

Homebrew

If you are using Homebrew, you can install the game by running the following command:

brew install fheroes2

Follow the instructions below to gather resources necessary for fheroes2 to function as expected.

MacPorts

If you are using MacPorts, you can install the game by running the following command:

port install fheroes2

Then follow the instructions on the screen.

Follow the instructions below to gather resources necessary for fheroes2 to function as expected.

macOS ZIP archive

  • Download the macOS ZIP archive. Currently only x86-64 binaries are provided. If you use a machine with an Apple Silicon chip, you should choose another installation method (using MacPorts or Homebrew), or build the project from source.

  • After downloading the ZIP archive, extract it to a suitable directory of your choice and then run the script install_sdl2.sh from the script/macos subdirectory. This will install the SDL libraries required to run the game.

Follow the instructions below to gather resources necessary for fheroes2 to function as expected.

macOS native app

  • Download the source and compile with the -DMACOS_APP_BUNDLE=ON option (if using CMake) or using the following commands (with make):
make FHEROES2_MACOS_APP_BUNDLE=ON
make FHEROES2_MACOS_APP_BUNDLE=ON bundle

Follow the instructions below to gather resources necessary for fheroes2 to function as expected.

Gathering game resources

Once you obtain the fheroes2 executable using any of the options above, you should follow these steps to load in the correct resources:

  • If you have a legally purchased copy of the original game in a self-extracting Windows executable (such as from GOG), you can utilize innoextract to extract files out of the exe without having to use Wine/Windows emulation software on your *UNIX-based machine.

  • If you have a legally purchased copy of the original game, run the extract resources script which will prompt you to enter the location of the original game, and will extract all the necessary resource files. The script can be run from the following paths depending on how you installed fheroes2:

    • fheroes2-extract-resources if you used a package manager (MacPorts or Homebrew);
    • script/homm2/extract_homm2_resources_for_app_bundle.sh if you built from source using the macOS native app method;
    • script/homm2/extract_homm2_resources.sh for all other cases.

  • As an alternative to the previous step, you can manually copy the subdirectories ANIM, DATA, MAPS and MUSIC (some of them may be missing depending on the version of the original game) from the original game directory to

    • ~/Library/Application Support/fheroes2 if you built from source using the macOS native app method;
    • ~/.fheroes2 for all other cases.

  • If you don't have a legally purchased copy of the original game, you can download and install the demo version of the original game by running the download demo script. The script can be run from the following paths depending on how you installed fheroes2:

    • fheroes2-install-demo if you used a package manager (MacPorts or Homebrew);
    • script/homm2/download_demo_version_for_app_bundles.sh if you built from source using the macOS native app method;
    • script/homm2/download_demo_version.sh for all other cases.

Linux

Flatpak

If you are using Flatpak and Flathub, you can install the game by running the following command:

flatpak install flathub io.github.ihhub.Fheroes2

And launch from the start menu or the console:

flatpak run io.github.ihhub.Fheroes2

Alternatively, you can use an application manager like Discover, which is also available on Steam Deck.

After the first start you will be asked for the original files. There are three possibilities:

  1. Install GOG version (recommended)
  2. Manual install
  3. Install demo

The recommended option requires the Heroes of Might and Magic II installer file (*.exe) from GOG. This will extract the appropriate resources by itself.

For the manual installation you have to copy the subdirectories ANIM, DATA, MAPS and MUSIC from the original game or demo directory to the ~/.var/app/io.github.ihhub.Fheroes2/data/fheroes2 directory. The destination folder will be opened when this option is selected.

Gentoo package

If you are using Gentoo, you can install the game using package manager. There are several options:

GOG version

If you purchased the game from GOG, add games-strategy/homm2-gold-gog GOG-EULA line to your /etc/portage/package.license, then use the following command:

sudo emerge -av games-strategy/homm2-gold-gog

It will ask you to put the .exe installer of the game and optionally the zip file with FLAC music to your distfiles directory, and if it's there, it will unpack everything to the correct places and pull games-engines/fheroes2 as a dependency.

USE-flag flac determines whether the game will use FLAC music or OGG music.

Demo version

You can install the demo version for free by adding games-strategy/homm2-demo HoMM2-Demo line to your /etc/portage/package.license, then using the following command:

sudo emerge -av games-strategy/homm2-demo

Another legal installation

If you installed the game from original CD, use the following commands:

sudo emerge -av games-engines/fheroes2
/usr/share/fheroes2/extract_homm2_resources.sh

The second command (Note: run it without root) will ask you where your data files are.

Homebrew

If you are using Homebrew, you can install the game by running the following command:

brew install fheroes2

If you have a legally purchased copy of the original game, copy the subdirectories ANIM, DATA, MAPS and MUSIC (some of them may be missing depending on the version of the original game) from the original game directory to the $XDG_DATA_HOME/fheroes2 (usually ~/.local/share/fheroes2) directory. Otherwise, you can download and install the demo version of the original game by running the /usr/share/fheroes2/download_demo_version.sh script.

AUR package

If you are using Arch Linux or compatible distribution, you can install fheroes2 package from AUR (Arch User Repository).

Install using AUR helper

If you use one of AUR helpers, e.g. yay, you can install the game by running the following command:

yay -S aur/fheroes2

Install using the official guide

Follow the official guide. One of possible command sets:

git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/fheroes2.git
cd fheroes2
makepkg -si

Debian and Ubuntu

fheroes2 is available from contrib repositories for Debian (since 13) and Ubuntu (since 24.04). You can install it by running:

apt install fheroes2

These distributions may not provide the latest version of the game due to their release cycle.

Game resources

To play the game you need the original game resources. You can install them to per-user paths (man fheroes2 for more info, or you can install them to the system-wide path (/usr/share/games/fheroes2) with game-data-packager program (since v70). To make the resource package:

game-data-packager heroes2 <path_to_installed_original_game>
apt install ./homm2-data_<version>_all.deb

You can get more info about resource packaging by running game-data-packager heroes2 --help

Linux ZIP archive

  • Download one of the following Linux ZIP archives:
    Linux x86-64 or
    Linux ARM64

  • After downloading the ZIP archive, extract it to a suitable directory of your choice. Then you will need to install the SDL libraries required to run the game. The installation procedure depends on the Linux distribution you are using:

    • Debian-based: run the script install_sdl2.sh from the script/linux subdirectory.

    • Pacman-based (e.g. Arch Linux): run the following command: sudo pacman -S sdl2 sdl2_mixer.

    • RedHat-based: for RPM-based distributions (such as Fedora or RedHat) use the commands sudo yum install SDL* or sudo dnf install SDL*.

    • openSUSE: openSUSE supports the One-Click-Install using the SDL_mixer.ymp file from the script/linux subdirectory.

    • Gentoo: run the following command: emerge --ask media-libs/sdl2-mixer.

  • After all dependencies are installed, run the extract_homm2_resources.sh script supplied in the ZIP archive if you have a legally purchased copy of the original game. You will be prompted to enter the location of the original game, and the script will extract all the necessary resource files.

  • As an alternative to the previous step, you can manually copy the subdirectories ANIM, DATA, MAPS and MUSIC (some of them may be missing depending on the version of the original game) from the original game directory to the fheroes2 installation directory.

  • If you don't have a legally purchased copy of the original game, you can download and install the demo version of the original game by running the download_demo_version.sh script supplied in the ZIP archive.

Android

PlayStation Vita

Please note: you need to be running custom firmware for it to work.

Nintendo Switch

Please note: you need to be running custom firmware for it to work.

Snapshots (latest builds)

You can download the precompiled binaries of the latest commit (snapshot) for Windows ( x64 SDL2 and x86 SDL2 ), macOS x86-64 ( SDL2 ), Ubuntu ( x86-64 SDL2 and ARM64 SDL2 ), Android, PlayStation Vita and Nintendo Switch. These binaries incorporate all the latest changes, but also all the latest bugs, and are mainly intended for developers.

DON'T EXPECT THEM TO WORK PROPERLY.