Hello everyone, I hope you're having a great day.

I want to start playing the might and magic series starting with MM6 and work my way through MM7 then MM8. Do I have to play any of the first five might and magic games in order to understand the story of 6, 7, or 8? I heard that the first 5 are a self-contained story, but I've also heard that they are connected to the later three. I plan on playing the first 5 games as well, but I really want to start with 6.

Thank you in advanced.

It's like you heard. 6-8 are one story arc and 1-5 are another. They are connected, but it's just references, but you won't miss out on the story of 6-8 if you haven't played 1-5.

(Like you will understand the story of the three books of Lord of the Rings, even if you didn't read The Hobbit).

I gather that 2 is a direct sequel to 1. 3 starts on a different world, but has some lore connections. 5 is a direct sequel to 4, and they have some lore connections. 6 is very loosely connected to the lore, but you won't miss anything. 7 is lore connected to 3, but you won't miss anything playing 7 first. 8 is vaguely lore connected to the overall story, but again you won't miss anything.

6, 7, and 8 take place in the same world, and certain characters appear in more than one of each, but each is on a different continent and their individual stories are self-contained. You can basically play them in any order with very little in the way of spoilers.

Well if you would really like to follow the Enroth story, you don't need to play MM 1-5 as all these take place on bunch of planets around the universe, but you should consider Heroes of Might and Magic series as these take place on Enroth and are directly connected to the events in Might and Magic 6-8.

You can review the full timeline here: [url=https://mightandmagic.fandom.com/wiki/Timeline_(Ancient_universe)][/url]

Edit: Sorry for the formatting, GoG obviosuly cannot handle URLS with characters like ")"

Quick Breakdown:

MM 1&2 are Directly connected in Story and lore.

MM 3-5 Are connected to the 1&2 story, but are a more like a self contained story. 4&5 (World of Xeen) are tied together (literally) so play them together (Light Side is 4, Dark Side is 5).

MM 6-8 are a self contained story with only references to 1-5. And unless you have played 1-5 you'll miss the references without missing a beat.

9 is a one off, and 10 we don't talk about.

Out of all of the 2 is probably the most story rich, with 3 being a close second. Also 2 has the most replayability and 3 is the "I'm an OP son-of-a-gun." There is a massive shift in play style between 5 and 6 though, so 6+ is almost like a totally different genre.