As Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era soars, Hooded Horse boss Tim Bender says passion-publishing trumps chasing money: "Why would anyone want to work with you if not for total lack of choice?"

In the PC gaming space, there are few names worth watching as closely as Hooded Horse. The Texas-based publisher works in the nebulous space between niche strategy titles and mainstream hits, and, more often than not, proves that the line between both is thin. From medieval city-builder Manor Lords to regal roguelike 9 Kings and real-time ant strategy Empires of the Undergrowth, Hooded Horse has a remarkable hit rate for the indie games it's put on pedestals. But with Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era, which Hooded Horse is publishing for developer Unfrozen, the team is stepping into a project where all eyes are on it from the get-go.

Still, it hasn't faltered. Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era is set to launch next year, but has already dominated Steam Next Fest with a demo that some players have already sunk upwards of 200 hours into. For good reason: the writers who have been playing Olden Era within GamesRadar+ (myself included) have already fallen in love with the strategy gem, so much so that it's leading our Big Preview coverage for November.

Tim Bender, CEO of Hooded Horse, was never in doubt. Speaking to GamesRadar+, Bender – who has been a fan of the series since its forerunner, King's Bounty – says he's "very happy" with Olden Era's reception, especially because they didn't set any expectations around performance. "We're often not guessing 'Oh I think [the demo will reach] this number, this many people," says Bender. "But having the 16th highest player count on any demo ever, as tracked by SteamDB? That was amazing. It was right there [next to] AAA games like Stellar Blade and Monster Hunter!"

Two turns ahead

While reviving Heroes of Might and Magic is a big step for Hooded Horse, Olden Era will launch in Early Access like many games in the publisher's portfolio. It's a tried-and-true tactic for Hooded Horse, and reviving a series of this caliber – despite the attention it brings – doesn't change anything.

"It's wonderful to have that pre-existing community, but at the same time, I think that ultimately players are willing to try out new games if you show them honestly what the game is," says Bender. "That usually means show them the gameplay, show them what's innovative about it – and there actually is something innovative about it, something that really is a unique thing to love about the game – [then] I think players are willing to give anything a chance and give their attention to it."

Early Access is a process that Hooded Horse has remained committed to since its founding in 2019, and some of their biggest hitters – think Manor Lords and 9 Kings – have remained iterating in Early Access despite their success. "Early Access is a great program because it allows a game to say hey, this is still early, still working on some stuff, but it's time to bring in player feedback. We want to hear from you, we want to understand how you perceive this, and we want to develop in conjunction with that feedback to deliver a better experience for everyone. If you're up for this process then come in, try it out, and relax. If you're not, it's OK! Just wait and it'll come out later in 1.0 and you can jump in. It's a great tool for that."

Countless developers – and a growing number of publishers – have taken advantage of Early Access over the years, but Hooded Horse remains unique in that it has a frankly staggering hit rate. As primarily a PC player, I've long admired how closely Hooded Horse keeps its finger to the platform's pulse. City builders Against The Storm and Manor Lords have both cleared one million sales, Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era is on track to take Steam by storm, and at risk of counting xeno-chickens before they hatch, the buzz around upcoming strategy RPG Menace suggests another hit is just a few months away. For Bender, achieving that reliability is a matter of taste.

"We have a type of game that we like to publish, and everyone in the company likes this type of game," Bender explains. "It's broad – it's not like we seal ourselves in, or only doing what someone would traditionally say is strategy genre even though we are a strategy publisher [...] but within that broad sense of these sorts of games that invoke strategic and tactical thinking, we all love them. We know them. When we get excited about one, we publish it because we think this is a game we would like to play, we would like to [publish]. Once you have that – and we're picky, we play a lot, we like things that are unique – the next step is to then authentically and honestly present to the players in marketing. Marketing's job isn't to get people excited about some abstract idea, or sell them on a lifestyle or atmosphere. It's about showing them 'Hey, here's what got us excited' [...] I think that's what I think really helps in terms of reliability."

Our conversation turns beyond Heroes of Might and Magic. The indie space is often defined by its biggest hits – the tail-end of 2025 has been shaped by sequels to two massive breakouts, Hades and Hollow Knight, and I still think of all the languages I (presumably) could've learned in 2024 if not for the Balatro-Manor Lords double whammy. But for every game that steers the zeitgeist, there are thousands more operating on a humbler scale. There, Bender says, lies the real work for publishers.

"Big viral hits don't really define what an indie publisher is," he explains. "I'm incredibly proud of Manor Lords, and I'm really glad we got to work on that [...] But when you're involved with a big viral hit, even if you make it bigger, it was probably going to be big! An indie publisher shows its value more [...] Helping deliver consistent performance. Helping the ones that go big, certainly, but also making sure that as much as possible they try to make all games have a chance to find their audience. It's much better to look at the median and look at how you do when games struggle. That's where any publisher should put their full efforts."

It all comes back to taste, and backing the games that Bender – the player, not the publisher – wants to be part of. By acting on passion, Hooded Horse comes full-circle into creating a successful business strategy: finding (often niche-by-design) PC strategy games – a field where more risk-averse publishers would simply wait for the biggest hits to surface before taking a chance on their developer – and giving them the support to find their fans.

"Games are so disparate in outcomes that if it's really about the money for how an organization operates, it's a very simple thing: ignore two thirds of your portfolio and focus on the third that is doing best," says Bender. "But at that point it's like, why would anyone want to work with you if not for total lack of choice?"

That makes Hooded Horse's mission statement all the more powerful. "What you want to do as a publisher is make things as sustainable as possible for developers, and you get them a result so people can keep their jobs and keep making games. [Then] when players buy something, it's not a gamble on whether it's still supported or not later on – rather they're buying something that there was love in the creation, that there's a commitment to, and that game then has a chance to find the people that will like it."

For Heroes of Might and Magic, which is set to launch in Early Access next year, it's safe to say Olden Era has found its audience.

Revisiting Heroes 3 after 20 years has made me realize that Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era may have already surpassed it