"Attrition is the core of the game": Original Heroes of Might and Magic creator's "Fun AI" approach is helping Olden Era developer Unfrozen balance PvE difficulty

Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era's Early Access launch is imminent, and developer Unfrozen kept some wise words in mind when rebalancing the smash hit Steam Next Fest demo's difficulty.

Community manager Bart Podress-Leszek tells GamesRadar+ of the changes players can expect in the Early Access build, including some guided by the advice given from original Heroes of Might and Magic creator, Jon Van Caneghem. "When he was working on the Heroes games, and when they were designing the [PvE] AI as a team, they used this term called Fun AI, where the AI is meant to be smart, but not too smart."

Podress-Leszek describes "Fun AI" as the "reckless" moves an AI enemy might make in a PvE scenario, intended to keep players guessing. The bot "knows it will not win. It will be defeated. It still does it, just to keep you on your toes, and knowing that attrition is the core of the game. So if you want to make progress, you need to start losing things."

This "pattern" he describes is the core competitive hook of all Heroes games, not just Olden Era. "Those two things, those lessons, were basically thought [up] by Mr. Caneghem, and were pretty important."

Speaking to Unfrozen's partnership with the strategy game creator, Podress-Lezsek calls it "nothing but fruitful," and his excitement as both a fan and community manager is evident. "Having this sort of deep insight from the man himself, it's kind of crazy. I grew up with those games. So it's kind of like meeting your celebrity [hero], and getting to work with them and everything [...] it's amazing."

When it comes to how Caneghem's tips might be brought into the Early Access version of Olden Era, Podress-Leszek says demo fans will certainly feel the changes when it comes to difficulty. "The adjusted easy AI will be a little bit easier now than it is in the demo, and difficult AI will be a little bit harder," he confirms. "But, yeah, it's a constant iteration, because it's not something that can be just set in stone. You have to keep working with that data."

Reworked AI difficulty isn't all Unfrozen has been tinkering with in the months since it patched the demo. I noticed that the Sylvan faction has been renamed to Grove when I sat down to play the incoming new build, a change implemented in response to player feedback. Similarly, the main user interface has been reworked to better emulate the look and feel of classic Heroes games – "something a little bit more reminiscent of what we are going back to," Podress-Leszek explains, with a game name like Olden Era.

The game is set to launch into Early Access on April 30, and with the expertise of Caneghem and Unfrozen's own expert strategists on team, it's already one of my most-wanted new games of 2026.

Check out our Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era Big Preview hub for more hands-on takes and interviews with the devs