Ubisoft revealed a brand new Heroes of Might and Magic game, Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era – just in time for the game’s 30th anniversary.
And even though the game kind of went downhill starting Heroes 3 (ok, maybe HoMM V), I have high hopes for this one, as it looks to get a bit back to the roots.
I say this as a massive Heroes fan (I am still playing HoMM 3 regularly, even today), and one who had to get a refund on the previous main game in the series, Heroes of Might and Magic VII because it was bad and unplayable.
But, based on the early look we got for HoMM: Olden Era, things look very promising. Check out the reveal trailer to see a bit of what the game will deliver, before we jump into all the details!
Main features on Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era
The new Heroes of Might and Magic game will take place in the world of Enroth, which is where the first two titles in the series took place. Despite getting back to origins, though, it will feature new factions, biomes and creatures.
Apart from this, Olden Era will introduce new features like more control over how players level up heroes and their factions, as there are now faction-specific abilities.
There are also new systems for learning skills and magic spells, and artifacts that now impart bonuses if players equip more than one piece from a set.
Units will now also have secondary abilities, which can be activated when a new energy meter fills – probably similar to King’s Bounty‘s mechanics.
“Graverobbers can summon Skeletons, Dungeon units have unique battle stances, and Sylvan Druids are casters whose array of spells may rival a beginner hero,” says Narrative Lead Alexandra “Alphyna” Golubeva at Unfrozen, the game’s developers.
One of the minor changes made to recent games is also one that makes me happier: hexagonal grids are back, after being dumped for the square ones a few iterations ago.
This alone will offer more tactical possibilities on the battlefield and also goes back to please the HoMM3 community, which is probably the most active (and largest) of them all when the Heroes of Might and Magic universe is concerned.
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Focus on multiplayer
Like most games today, Olden Era will focus on multiplayer, offering competitive play and plenty of maps for players to test their skills on, but for veteran players, the developers promise that single player will not be ignored.
We will have at least one main single player campaign in the upcoming game, as well as skirmish missions similar to the plethora of maps available in older Heroes of Might and Magic games, but also a highly useful (if it works well) map generator which allows for unlimited replayability.
There’s also a map editor in the game, for players to create their own maps – so we do have many of the ingredients that Heroes 3 had.
What I don’t like is related to the multiplayer mode – a new Arena, where players can create custom heroes with specific artifacts, skills and creatures and then get into a single battle.
Factions and Heroes
This is probably the most important aspect of the upcoming game: how balanced the factions and heroes (old and new) are. And with so many of them involved, it’s easy to do things wrong, but let’s hope this won’t happen.
Here are the factions that will be present in the game:
- The knightly Temple
- The Sylvan
- Dungeon (Dark Elves and other subterranean dwellers)
- The undead Necropolis
- The Hive (which are the bad guys in the campaign).
There is also one additional faction that will be revealed later.
But all in all, we can say that we have the “traditional” factions from the HoMM universe, even though not as varied as those in Heroes 3.
As for the heroes themselves, each faction will have “several” for you to choose from, and they will be unique both in appearance, as well as boosts offered on the battlefield.
Heroes will also be able to equip artifacts which are parts of sets – the more you have from a specific set, the higher the bonuses you will receive.
You will also be able to select subskills for your heroes, which apparently are related to the main specialization of each hero – so this could offer plenty of options for building formidable heroes, but is also risky as a single OP hero could ruin the game’s balance instantly.
One interesting subskill the developers mentioned when presenting Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era is one that gives you unique spells that can’t be obtained in any other way. I’m sure if one of those skills would be related to a Town Portal-like spell, everybody would get it!
The adventure map & tactical battles
Looking at the screenshots revealed by Ubisoft, as well as the trailer above, the visual approach developers took is definitely not back to origins, as the rest of the game wants to be.
While colorful enough and with minor resemblances to the golden era of Heroes of Might and Magic 3, the visuals the game delivers are closer to what you’d expect from a free-to-play mobile game and not a full-blown AAA title.
While the world map itself doesn’t bother me as much and I could live with this cartoony and strange new visual style, the battlefield itself is atrocious and I can only hope that the developers will work on making it better. You simply can’t take a game seriously when the battle part looks like that!
Of course, it’s still relatively early days for the game and there’s still time for tweaks and fixes, including in the visuals department (although I wouldn’t bet on it happening!)
But even if things don’t change, I am still excited and looking forward to this new game which hopefully will revive the franchise that I love so much (OK, the game that I love so much – Heroes 3).
Based on all this new & exciting information, I can only hope this new Heroes of Might and Magic game goes from Olden Era to Golden Era for veteran and new Heroes players alike.
You can wishlist the game on Steam, with a planned release date of Q2 2025.
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