History VideoGame / HornOfTheAbyss

* SelfDestructMechanism: Automatons detonate one turn after their death, damaging everything around them. You can also prime their self-destruction, making it easier to utilize but risking them damaging your own troops as well.

** The Resistance skill is removed[[note]]in practice. It still ''exists'' as a skill, but it will not be offered at level-up, from scholars or Witch Huts, and Resistance-boostin artifacts do not randomly spawn, so it can be used in custom maps but will otherwise not be present[[/note]] and replaced by Interference, which lowers an enemy hero's Spell Power rather than granting a chance to negate incoming spells. As a result, Thorgrim (who specializes in Resistance) is banned by default and replaced by Giselle.

** The Resistance skill is removed and replaced by Interference, which lowers an enemy hero's Spell Power rather than granting a chance to negate incoming spells. As a result, Thorgrim (who specializes in Resistance) is banned by default and replaced by Giselle.

** Conflux was hit ''hard'', including making Psychic/Magic Elementals more expensive, making Firebirds only 50% fire resistant instead of fire immune (Phoenixes are unchanged), changing their [[HomeFieldAdvantage native terrain]] from Grass to the uncommon Highlands, locking the upgraded Magic Lantern behind the Magic University to make Sprites slower and more costly to obtain, lowering Firebird/Phoenix growth from 2 to 1 (although with the new Vault of Ashes this can be increased by 1 for a total of 3 with Castle, down from 4) and limiting their Grail to only give spells that Conflux can naturally learn and only up to the level of their Mage Guild.

* SandWorm: Factory's tier 5 creature, which can burrow underground for a form of NotQuiteFlight and eat corpses they emerge under. Their upgraded form is the Olgoi-Khorkhoi, better known as the Mongolian death worm.

* BeastOfBattle: Ayssids and Sea Serpents are oceanic animals used by the Regnan military. Done more maliciously on Factory's side: Armadillos, Sand Worms, and Couatls were captured and are being bred specifically for war. Their upgraded forms show the result of the intense breeding, with Crimson Couatls losing their beautiful rainbow plumage.

* ContinuityNod: Quite a few. Many map objects are inspired by ''Heroes II'', up to the Wasteland terrain being an addition and a design aspect of Factory being carrying over things and themes lost from the Heroes II Wizard town in the transition to the Heroes III Tower (a bit like Conflux did for Sorceress/Rampart), and the campaigns are littered with references to places and things from the [[VideoGame/MightAndMagic roleplaying games]] and events from the ''Heroes III'' campaigns (three of the campaigns take place roughly concurrently with the ''Armageddon's Blade'' campaigns, while the fourth starts out a bit before ''Shadow of Death'' but in the same area that the eponymous campaign of ''Armageddon's Blade'' focused on). The Cove itself is contextualized as a town associated with Regna, a nation referred to multiple times throughout ''Heroes'' and ''Might & Magic'' and seen in ''Might & Magic VIII''.

* QuickDraw: The special ability of the Factory's Gunslinger/Bounty Hunter creatures. When they're targeted by a shooter each round, they pull out a pistol and fire at their attacker before the enemy has a chance to shoot. Gunslingers do it once per turn, while Bounty Hunters can do it an unlimited number of times.

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/horn_of_the_abyss.png]]

* MechanicallyUnusualClass: Factory is uniquely split into two "sub-factions" - the wasteland Halflings, Armadillos, Sand Worms, and Couatls, and the technological Mechanics, Automatons, Gunslingers, and Dreadnauts. The town is arranged in a way where it's most economically viable to focus on one path rather than build all eight. The payoff is they have access to ''two'' tier 7 units and can eventually build both in one town.

* MythologyGag: One of the Factory towns seen in teaser images is named New Dolere. This is in reference to the one surviving screenshot of the scrapped Forge town that Factory is inspired by, which had the placeholder name Dolere (one of the random names that Strongholds can have).

* AerithAndBob: The names of Cove's heroes include strange fantasy names like Zilare and Eovacius, but also perfectly mundane ones like Anabel, Derek, and Jeremy. The lattermost of those is even TheHero of the Cove campaigns. Factory is even more extreme, with heroes like Tancred and Floribert alongside Henrietta, Frederick, Sam, and Todd (with Henrietta sharing being TheHero of the Factory campaign with Frederick).

* AerithAndBob: The names of Cove's heroes include strange fantasy names like Zilare and Eovacius, but also perfectly mundane ones like Anabel, Derek, and Jeremy. The lattermost of those is even TheHero of the Cove campaigns. Factory is even more extreme, with heroes like Tancred and Floribert alongside Henrietta, Sam, and Todd.

* TeslaCoil: Factory's Grail building is the Lightning Rod, which appears as a massive metal spire rising out of a canyon with an electrified ball on top. It strikes all enemies with lightning at the start of every combat.

* TeslaCoil: Factory's Grail building is the Lightning Rod

* FeatheredDragons: The Couatl of the Factory are this, apparently related somehow to the [[FeatheredSerpent Couatl]] of ''Might and Magic VIII'' and still evoking the ''cultural'' associations of [[FeatheredSerpent Feathered Serpents]] (their upgraded form has a helmet shaped after Mesoamerican statuary, for example), but shaped like a dragon covered in feathers and with avian wings instead of a serpent with avian wings.
* GlassCannon: The Cove faction is generally this with its Tier 1-5 units, none of them having over 35 HP and having low Defense, generally relying on unique abilities or dishing out damage rather than taking it. Nixes and Sea Serpents, however, make up for this by being much tougher to kill (though the Haspid has relatively low Defense skill for an upgraded Tier 7 unit, it has 300 HP). The Cove's Might hero, the Captain, also leans more towards Attack skill rather than Defense.

* QuickDraw: The special ability of the Factory's Gunslinger/Bounty Hunter creatures. The first time they're targeted by a shooter each round, they pull out a pistol and fire at their attacker before the enemy has a chance to shoot.

* ContinuityNod: Quite a few. Many map objects are inspired by ''Heroes II'', up to the Wasteland terrain being an addition and a design aspect of Factory being carrying over things and themes lost from the Heroes II Wizard town in the transition to the Heroes III Tower (a bit like Conflux did for Sorceress/Rampart), and the campaigns are littered with references to places and things from the [[VideoGame/MightAndMagic roleplaying games]] and events from the ''Heroes III'' campaigns (the three campaigns take place roughly concurrently with the ''Armageddon's Blade'' campaigns). The Cove itself is contextualized as a town associated with Regna, a nation referred to multiple times throughout ''Heroes'' and ''Might & Magic'' and seen in ''Might & Magic VIII''.

* Factory (upcoming), a reimagining of the scrapped Forge town, this time themed around CattlePunk instead of sci-fi. They have a mix of wasteland dwelling creatures and steampunk machines in their lineup. Uniquely, they have access to two tier 7 units, both of which can be built in the same town.

* AerithAndBob: The names of Cove's heroes include strange fantasy names like Zilare and Eovacius, but also perfectly mundane ones like Anabel, Derek, and Jeremy. The lattermost of those is even TheHero of the Cove campaigns. Factory is even more extreme, with heroes like Heatstroke and Jangaard alongside Henrietta, Sam, and Todd.

* NintendoHard: The campaigns of ''Horn of the Abyss'' were designed by pro players, for pro players, and it shows. In several levels, you will be constantly starved of resources, be on a short timeframe to get things done before your enemies come in and wipe you out, and winning will require several high-level tactics just to survive. It's winnable, for sure, but not intended for the average ''Heroes'' player. The developers have even stated that it is not intended to be winnable if one plays on the Impossible difficulty setting (where you start with no resources). It is also worth mentioning that the higher level adventure spells like "Town Portal", "Fly" and "Dimension Door" are coded to not even spawn in the mage guilds, particularly in the third campaign in which their presence would've greatly reduced the difficulty and duration of the XL-sized maps.[[note]]Strangely, one of the factions (representing the Wizards of Bracada) still has access to Town Portal [[TheComputerIsACheatingBastard despite their Mage Guilds not carrying it]][[/note]]

* BalanceBuff: ''Horn of the Abyss'' has multiple quality-of-life changes and buffs to underpowered heroes, skills, and creatures. Some of the major buffs include allowing Magogs to aim where their fireballs at a specific location instead of a creature (previously, it was hard to get max value and you could often hit your own units), doubling the money Estates generates and almost tripling the Spell Point bonus from Mysticism, and making Inferno cheaper to build.

** The effectiveness of Necromancy has been halved across the board, meaning Necropolis is much less unbeatable in the lategame.

* LizardFolk: The Nixes found in the Cove ''appear'' to be a sea-dwelling relative of the Lizardmen found in the Tatalian Fortress, although their origins are never explained except
that they had been thought extinct for a long time.

** The overpowered heroes Sir Mullich and Galthran are banned by default, replaced with Lord Haart and newcomer Ranloo.