What happened to that fan effort of releasing Might and Magic 8.5? Did it get abandoned?

I'm not sure what you mean by 8.5 but we have merged and multiplayer working, better off visiting celestialheavens for custom projects though.

If you mean MM8.5 Echo of Destruction, development has been stopped. A message about the halted development of 8.5 is at Celestial Heavens in the thread below:

https://www.celestialheavens.com/forum/10/12085?start=360

Most of the fan projects (or into about them) are located there for English users, so it is easier to get an answer there as stated above.

Yes, that's how it was called, "Echoes of Destruction". Thank you!

Sad to hear it was cancelled.