Dark Messiah takes place 20 years after the end of Heroes of Might and Magic V. After a short prologue, a young man called Sareth is sent by his master to the city of Stonehelm to give an artifact called the Shantiri Crystal to Menelag the wizard. From there, the game will quickly put you in the middle of the action and let you progress through nine chapters and one epilogue of various lengths. You see the world through the eyes of Sareth, who travels alone most of the time, and the games does a good job to let you identify to the character: if you look down you will see your feet, if you climb a ladder you field of vision will be limited on each side, if you are thrown by a creature you will end up on the ground, looking at the enemy who is towering you. Unfortunately, that effect is spoiled by the fact that all conversations in the game are scripted and spoken. Similarly, the game gives you very little freedom in your travels. You are supposed to go from point A to point B, and besides a few exceptions, walls, closed doors and dead-ends will force you to follow the path drawn by the developers. As a consequence, your tour of the city of Stonehelm is limited to a few streets and buildings. There is no shop around, bystanders will barely say a few words and ignore you when you talk to them, and the objectives in your journal are merely a list of things to do before you get to the next chapter. However, the first time you come across an enemy, you quickly find out that your trips around Stonehelm will not be a walk in the park.
