Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era preview – An accessible restart

Unfrozen has an interesting challenge to overcome with Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era. It’s a franchise beloved by many PC gamers, but that’s been laying dormant for a decade — and in that time other games, such as the popular Songs of Conquest, have filled the vacuum that was left by the former king of the genre. In other words: Olden Era can’t simply waltz in and take its seat on an empty throne. Indeed, the title comes in as a challenger that needs to prove worthy of the legacy it aims to inherit.

It’s not an enviable scenario, but one Unfrozen has voluntarily undertaken by pitching the game to Ubisoft in the first place, driven by the developers’ own passion and teenage memories from playing earlier iterations of the series. This whole unusual origin and situation is completed with the addition of Hooded Horse into the mix. The acclaimed strategy game publisher was brought on board earlier this year for its expertise with Early Access launches.

How does one reclaim a lost throne, then? There seem to be two main aspects to the plan. One is to stick to the very basics of the genre and be faithful to the franchise’s principles. Two is the addition of experiences shaped by modern gaming culture to bring a new audience on board.

Let’s start with two: Alongside the usual solo and multiplayer campaigns you’d expect from this genre (all with separate matchmaking and even ranked modes available), Olden Era will offer a bite-sized and combat-focused PvE and PvP mode inspired by the likes of Hearthstone’s Arena. You get to draft an army and spells from a random pool to challenge another player that’s gone through the same steps in a single battle. Naturally, we’re looking at a vastly reduced time commitment compared to a full multiplayer campaign here, but you still get the fun of building and customizing an army and commanding it in the field. It’s an interesting approach to make this genre more digestible, not only for a new audience but also for old fans who simply no longer have the time to commit hours to a single campaign.

When it comes to the core gameplay, Olden Era adheres closely to the franchise’s origins. Case in point: terrain. All battlefields are flat, unlike in Songs of Conquest where you have cliffs and such to make combat a bit more varied and tactical. Unfrozen doesn’t want to “overwhelm” players with additional features like this, however, and finds that the feature diluted the formula too much, making it too “un-Heroes-like,” studio representatives told me at Gamescom 2025. Similarly, mechanics like backstabbing and flanking aren’t featured, making combat a relatively simple affair — but it’s not without depth. Most units have one or more active abilities and then there are your heroes’ spells and unique faction mechanics to be considered, of course. Morale is also a factor and can lead to units getting extra moves, which is neat.

You can drive the concept of simplicity a bit too far, though: Most of the game is played with the left mouse button, using single or double clicks, while the right mouse button is forgotten — I’m not sure why. Splitting commands between them would feel a lot more intuitive to me.

Steering units in combat is somewhat clunky, too. You can’t move your units and then target an enemy in range. If you want to attack, you’ll need to target the enemy before even moving up, which makes subsequent positioning quite finicky. 

In terms of gameplay, all is as old-school fans will remember it: You start with a single hero and town, from where you occupy additional structures, defeat rogue forces, gather treasure, and so on to create an empire and eliminate your rivals. Olden Era’s visuals are impeccable, featuring a beautiful art style that almost looks drawn by hand at times, though the overworld map is almost a bit cluttered at times, making it difficult to identify locations you can interact with at a glance — you can, thankfully, highlight such areas.

Reacting to differing community feedback on the game’s visuals, the developers even added a variety of color modes, so you can customize the looks of the title quite substantially, making it more vibrant or less saturated, depending on your tastes and mood.

Olden Era’s story campaign will consist of three acts, the first being between 15 and 20 hours long. Here’s where the game breaks with tradition: Instead of featuring separate campaigns for different factions, Unfrozen offers a continuous experience with the same cast of heroes — but players get to decide which side they’re taking in the story on a case-by-case basis. It’s a more personality-driven experience, focusing more on the personal stories of the heroes, and the fact that it’s non-linear will increase its replayability value: “Some of the options will lock you out of some missions and unlock others.”

No entry into this genre is truly complete without a map editor either and the developers plan to add capabilities to this over time as well, such as the ability to create full custom campaigns.

Unfrozen is focusing on delivering a polished Early Access release, aware that the landscape around this business model has changed. Players are expecting a higher level of polish and content than five years ago. “It has to be interesting immediately to try and capture some attention,” the developers say.

That’s not just talk, either: Olden Era will feature more content such as available spells than previous iterations of the series right from the get-go, so the developers are serious about delivering a relatively complete package.

“We want this franchise to be known once more, because it’s been dormant for quite a while and a lot of new audiences don’t really know Heroes. We really want to show our favorite game to them, to give it the spotlight it deserves,” Unfrozen concludes.

Having spent an hour with the game and its developers, I think their chances are good to do that, thanks to its accessibility and out-of-the-box-thinking — but whether it will be enough to dethrone the excellent Songs of Conquest, which captured a lot of this genre’s devoted core audience, remains to be seen.

Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era is set to be released for PC in 2025.

More features on DBLTAP: