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

Ever since I realized I could put my old Sold Out published copy of Heroes of Might and Magic 3 in storage and reliably load up Heroes of Might and Magic 3: Complete through the Good Old Game Preservation Programme instead, this classic has rarely not been installed on my PC. Which is why, when Hooded Horse and Unfrozen announced Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era as a classic-style approach to revive the series, I was both overjoyed and a little nervous. Thankfully, I needn't have been. I've been playing both over the last couple of months, and I've never appreciated Heroes as a series more.

Heroes of Might and Magic is an odd and unique strategy series in several ways. For starters, it's a spin-off of Might and Magic, an old school crunchy dungeon crawling RPG classic that I'm sure was very good but is way too intimidating for someone who grew up mostly on colorful platformers like Sonic. By the time I came to its strategy spin-off, really getting into it with Heroes 3, exploring huge maps with a massive amount of freedom while building up my town and monsters was a compelling loop that could be as friendly or as daunting as I wanted to make it.

That's because Heroes straddles a weird line of both being perfect to slot into a gap in your playtime when you're not sure what you want to boot up, and also absorbing hours and hours in what feels like an instant. The amount of times I've jumped into a new map template with a mug of cocoa after dinner only to notice it's somehow 2am makes me shudder. What's great is that both Heroes 3 and Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era fit the bill – the revival is totally nailing all the little structures and loops that made the original compelling.

Time after time

After spending several hours in the free Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era demo, which is packed with content and still available – I wanted to see how it stacked up against my beloved Heroes 3. After all, Olden Era was doing such a great job at recapturing the vibe of one of the best strategy games I'd ever played that I wanted to keep that going with the full version of Heroes of Might and Magic 3.

Don't get me wrong, revisiting Heroes 3 has been fun whether that's dipping into the expansions (which aren't available in the Heroes 3 HD re-release, only in the classic GOG one, so watch out for that), tackling the original campaign, or just diving into random maps for quickfire matches. But only when revisiting the classic after Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era did I really appreciate all the subtle additions the upcoming game has already brought to the formula.

To be honest, they can be hard to spot. Everything in Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era feels so right and makes so much sense that a kind of rose-tinted memory made me think 'surely, it's always been that way' – even while I know at the back of my brain that, considering Heroes 3 released before 2000, that probably wasn't the case. Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era is the definition of making a classic series just like you remembered it.

Navigating your heroes around the map, mousing over structures (and highlighting them too), even splitting and organizing units is just so much more intuitive in Olden Era, that I felt all thumbs returning to Heroes 3, forgetting just how many clicks I needed to do to accomplish the same tasks. Likewise, while Heroes 3 does provide some guidance on what map structures you've visited, only when getting consistently less of it did I realize how much I'd come to lean on Olden Era's clearer information.

It's not just when exploring, either, and some of Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era's extra details empower me to make greater tactical decisions than I'd been used to in Heroes 3. Auto-battle predictions being a dynamic option rather than buried-in-the-menu toggle is one thing, but something as simple as a mouseover prediction in battle for the damage a unit will do is also huge. It means I can spend more time navigating the much more user-friendly spellbook, or even choosing one of a few special moves for my upgrade units to pull out.

Likewise, while managing your town upgrades in each match, greater clarity across upgrade menus allows whole new menus to fit in seamlessly, from greater control over magic enhancement paths, to a Law menu that allows you to finetune faction-specific upgrades.

While plenty of these slick ideas in Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era are new, crucially, some of these options have also been explored in later Heroes games. But, at least for me, everything after Heroes 3 was a bit disappointing as they tried too hard to modernize (I still had a fair bit of fun with Heroes 4, though it didn't last long before I was back to Heroes 3). What's great about Olden Era is that Unfrozen understands the appeal of the classic Heroes trilogy, and has modernized around supporting that original vision rather than haphazardly building on top. This is a modernization of those original ideas without needing to feel like it has to shift into a new direction.

It's a terrific start considering Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era isn't even out yet, but the currently available demo has done a lot to assuage my fears. In fact, though playing Heroes 3 is still fun, when I'm mid-match for once I'm starting to get the itch to boot up Olden Era instead. For years, it's always been the other way around, and I know once Olden Era is available in Early Access I won't be able to resist the pull. Considering the demo alone is this impressive – and I've been given a brief behind-closed-doors look at the intriguing campaign as well – we're in for something special. Heroes 3, you've been a champ – but now you've got real competition.

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