Heroes of Might & Magic: Olden Era Announcement

According to the developers, Heroes of Might & Magic: Olden Era is a full-fledged prequel that will "take players back to the origins of the series that defined the genre of turn-based strategies." When creating Olden Era, the studio was inspired by the third and fifth "Heroes." The title should appeal to both ardent HoMM fans and newcomers, Unfrozen is confident.

The upcoming strategy builds on the foundation laid by the old HoMM titles and adds some new things to the formula. For example, players will be able to better control the development of heroes and factions using, for example, unique faction skills. Also, artifacts will give more bonuses if you equip several items from the same set. Meanwhile, creatures have secondary skills that can be used when a new energy bar is filled. For example, Dungeon units will activate special combat stances, and Grave Robbers will be able to summon skeletons.

In combat, Olden Era will offer the usual hexagonal field with an orthogonal camera and updated gameplay that takes into account modern technologies and trends. Heroes will again only cast spells and carry out special attacks. They also have passive buffs for some types of creatures.

In Olden Era, mage guilds will return, but they will issue spells less randomly than they did in Heroes of Might & Magic 3. They say that if in the single-player campaign of the "troika" this could still be put up with, then in multiplayer such randomness could ruin the entire passage.

The action of Olden Era takes place on Enroth and for the first time on the continent of Jadame - previously in the HoMM games there were only mentions of it. You will have to do the usual things: explore the fantasy world, build cities, accumulate resources, gather troops and fight crowds of mythical creatures and armies of enemies. You can play alone in a non-linear story campaign and on generated maps, as well as with friends in network mode. With the help of the map editor, you can create your own story.

The Olden Era story follows a fragile alliance of factions that is forced to confront the Swarm, insectoid creatures that have fallen under the control of a demon from Inferno who is bent on conquering the world.

The game will feature six factions, each of which lives by its own laws:

• Temple (classic knights)
• Necropolis (undead and vampires)
• Forest Union (elves and forces of nature)
• Dungeon (dark elves and underground creatures)
• Swarm (insect-like demonic creatures)
• And a mysterious sixth faction, which the studio will talk about later

They have also prepared several game modes:

• Classic – the player controls one or more heroes, improves the castle, and explores the map.
• One Hero is a blitz mode in which the player has only one hero. The death of the hero means defeat.
• Arena is a mode for those who love battles. You need to hire and improve a hero, choose suitable troops, and immediately enter into battle with an opponent.

Heroes of Might & Magic: Olden Era will launch in Steam Early Access in Q2 2025. Early Access will feature key gameplay mechanics and a significant portion of the story. The title is expected to remain in Early Access for about a year. The full version will receive much more content, polished mechanics, and improved graphics.