I've been waiting 10 years for Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era, so here's the five biggest updates I'm already loving, and the development choices behind them

Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era isn't out yet but, in a sense, it already is. Thanks to an unusually content rich free demo that almost feels like early-early access, many players – myself included – have already put many hours into the game. While the proper early access will have a lot of tweaks, it's always enough time to get familiar with how Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era is setting itself apart from classics like Heroes 3, all while honoring their legacy as some of the best strategy games out there.

"Heroes is for everyone," developer Unfrozen's CEO Denis Fedorov tells us. That comes through with Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era's many quality-of-life improvements, but also through things like presentation and even the fact this is a prequel – this is a strategy RPG chock full of features you can simply get stuck into. Whether you're a returning fan oddly charmed by brand new factions like the insectoid Hive, or a complete newcomer, there's something to entice all tactical levels. Speaking with game director and lead designer Leonid Parmenov, we learn more about the five biggest updates that have us the most intrigued from our own hands-on with the demo, and extended access to a behind-closed-door build of Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era.

5. The prequel setting of Jadame feels grounded yet fresh

Being a prequel means fans will pick up on plenty of seeded lore, but also means newcomers don't have to worry about learning loads of story from games over two decades old. "We were looking for some place that was there, but at the same time was not so well shown in the first three games," explains Parmenov. "Not just because we didn't want to go over the same events, the same characters again – we were looking for something that was there, but at the same time not so well-studied."

Conceptually, Olden Era is about returning to the style of play in the original Heroes of Might and Magic trilogy, while modernizing along the way. In that sense, it's a departure from HoMM 4-7. The prequel idea and setting it on the continent of Jadame "helped us to stick to our philosophy of going back to the roots," says Parmenov. "In one way, we're going back to the roots to the gameplay from classic Heroes games. At the same time, we also like going back to the roots in the sense of going to the past."

Beyond just the setting itself, "the fact that it's a prequel affected the whole game," says Parmenov. "For example, we know how Heroes of Might and Magic 3 ended, and we know some things that happened in Jadame, because Might and Magic 8 is based on the same continent. Some events happened in the future, let's say – and of course we had to build the game around those events."

4. A campaign with some twists

This particular entry in the series promises some more traditional RPG-style design elements. So far, this hasn't completely uprooted traditional Heroes of Might and Magic gameplay, but the campaign does have some mechanically playful elements early on. We've played some of the campaign ourselves, but can't reveal too many details – but rest assured what we've gone hands-on with has us keen to play more.

"Only the first out of three parts of the campaign will be available [at Early Access launch]. That's about 15 hours of gameplay. And during early access, we will finish and polish the other two parts of the campaign," says Parmenov on how the story mode will look come launch. "We are trying to make the campaign more RPG oriented, where the player can make different choices, and those choices have their own consequences, and they influence the whole thing. [...] It's something that people enjoyed in other [instalments in the] series, for example, in Heroes 4." We prod Parmenov for more we can actually discuss about what that will mean. "There is a mission where you have one game day," he elaborates. "It's like unlimited movements, and it kind of turns into, like, a real time thing. You have a never ending day."

3. Arena mode. Like, all of it.

The concept of quickfire arena battles aren't completely new to the series. Customized mini-maps have been a feature even in classic Heroes. But Unfrozen have seen that style of play as an opportunity in which they can really dig out a fresh feeling new take on a proper mode. Here, you cut through all the noise of maps and resources to draft heroes, units, spells and more for speedy battles without fuss.

"We took in consideration that we all live in 2025. We are now all in a very fast paced world, and people have less time to play games, or they want to dedicate less time to playing games," says Paremov. "These kinds of fast-paced modes that allow you just play like a full game in a short amount of time – Arena mode fits [the necessity for shorter games] very well. It's a full-scale battle that you can play in even in 15, 20 minutes, and it's very vivid and full of events to watch. Because of that, it's also very suitable for the streamers, and we believe that it will be quite popular among the players."

2. Factional distinction

Jadame is a continent full of Dark Elves with a strong seafaring culture, and it's home to some factions that feel truly distinct. Even with fewer towns to master than some previous games in the series at launch, added depth really makes them feel super varied when it comes to aspects like unique Laws to enact to shape personal builds, or even battle units that have multiple upgrade paths that can be used side-by-side.

"Jadame is known for having pirates. We don't have them in Olden Era at the moment, but theoretically it allows us to create a faction that would be completely focused on seafaring," says Parmenov as we discuss the possibility the continent brings for further expansion past the full launch. "There are six factions there [for Early Access], no pirates yet, but hypothetically, it is possible. [...] The other specific thing about Jadame is it's the continent that is mostly populated by Dark Elves and not by humans. Unlike, for example, [elsewhere on] Enroth, where humans were the biggest part of the population, here, they are more the guests of the continent."

1. Even the demo is extremely replayable already, and custom maps and multiplayer will expand it even more

"All our campaigns are basically created with the map editor. Once it becomes available to everyone we are looking forward to seeing how some creative people will even [be able to] create their own campaigns using that editor," says Parmenov. "We also want to give people the template editor that they could use to make their own schematics for a template for the random map generator, so that they can just make one template and use or play it as many times as they want."

In the recent build of Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era we play, we're able to browse a massive list of map templates that will generate loads of maps based on conditional settings. We can't detail too many, but one, for instance, takes place in a particularly resource-starved region that will put limitations on how quickly factions can build up their towns. With a player base this dedicated already, the prospect of deep customization could make Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era potentially endless – and with how much love has already been shown to the classic games through the community we're very hopeful. This is shaping up to be a quest of truly epic proportions.

Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era is coming to PC in 2026, published by Hooded Horse and developed by Unfrozen.