Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era will launch into Early Access on 30th April, developer Unfrozen has announced, reviving the classic fantasy turn-based strategy series a decade after the last entry.
The Early Access release looks to be pretty fully featured, debuting with six unique factions, though only giving you the first act of the campaign to play. Alongside that, though, are a handful of different single player and multiplayer modes – including hotset mode – a random map generator, and even a pre-release version of a map editor.
Here’s the full feature list:
- Six unique factions: Temple, Dungeon, Schism, Grove, Necropolis, and Hive
- An in-game tutorial
- The first act of the campaign. More acts will be added with the full release of the game
- Premade scenarios with self-contained stories, with even more coming during Early Access
- Classic, Single Hero, and Arena modes, available in both single-player and multiplayer
- Matchmaking, ranked play, and leaderboards for all three modes in multiplayer
- A wide variety of Random Map Generator templates for unlimited replayability
- Hotseat mode, allowing you to play against friends and family one after another on a single PC
- A series of puzzle-style challenges
- A pre-release version of map editor to create your own adventures
Previously expected in 2025, the early access for Olden Era was pushed back after player feedback to a demo, with studio Unfrozen working to revamp the UI and redesign some units.
There’s hope and expectation that this can recall some of the heights of the long-running series, and there’s been comparisons to Heroes of Might and Magic 3 made since its reveal. The core gameplay retains strategic empire building from a single town, exploring the surrounding lands and dropping into tense turn-based tactical battles. While it should appeal to old hands with the Classic mode rules and the tougher Single Hero mode, a new Arena mode variant is there to speed up the game and be an avenue in for newer players.
