Manor Lords publisher Hooded Horse is partnering with Ubisoft for the release of its upcoming Heroes of Might and Magic prequel.
Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era is being developed by Unfrozen, the devs behind the well-received strategy roguelike Iratus: Lord of the Dead. But, while Ubisoft is continuing to hold onto the IP rights of its classic fantasy franchise, it's handing over publishing duties to Hooded Horse.
Arguably best-known as the publisher of smash-hit city-builder Manor Lords, which spent time as Steam's most-wishlisted game ahead of its early access release, Hooded Horse specializes in all kinds of strategy games. That makes it an excellent fit for Olden Era, a turn-based game harking back to Heroes of Might and Magic's origins by acting as an official prequel.
Set to launch later this year into early access, Olden Era has already racked up an impressive 600,000 wishlists, enough to make it one of the 50 most-anticipated games on Steam. It'll take the franchise to a new location, Jadame, which has been referenced in older Heroes of Might and Magic games, but never visited until now. With turn-based action interspersed with overworld exploration, as well as several different factions to battle between.
It's not the first time that the Heroes of Might and Magic series has changed hands in some form or another. In their relative infancy through the 90s and early 2000s, the games had a handful of different publishers, including Ubisoft, which eventually acquired sole ownership in 2003. It's not unheard of for major publishers to hand off development opportunities to other studios, but it's comparatively more rare for big franchises to be published by other companies. Hooded Horse's expertise in the strategy space, however, does seem to make this a pretty sensible partnership.
Manor Lords publisher says game devs and big corpos don't get on because making games is "fundamentally unpredictable."
