Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era - Early Access

I put roughly thirty hours into Olden Era before I could even articulate why I kept cancelling other plans to play it. The answer is the same one that hooked players on Heroes III a generation ago: the loop is almost chemically addictive. Explore the overworld, lock down resource nodes, build your town up one structure at a time, recruit creatures, and then commit to a hex-grid battle where positioning and spell timing matter far more than raw stack size. Unfrozen, the studio behind Iratus: Lord of the Dead, clearly rebuilt this from the bones of HoMM III with genuine reverence, and series creator Jon Van Caneghem joined as creative advisor to make sure the DNA stayed intact. The six launch factions - Temple, Necropolis, Grove, Dungeon, Hive, and Schism - each demand a fundamentally different playstyle rather than just swapping out unit portraits. Dungeon plays a dual-attack flexibility game that rewards active micro. Hive leans into a Hivemind passive that strengthens the more distinct unit types you field together, but it punishes you for relying on ranged options. Schism, the most mechanically unusual of the bunch, runs on an Abyssal Communion meter that grows with consecutive victories and decays every day you sit idle, which creates a beautifully tense pacing tension. Every faction also has its own Law tree - a second build path running parallel to your hero's skill progression - which layers strategic depth on top of an already demanding economy. You are tracking gold, Alchemical Dust, Astrology Points, Law Points, and Focus generation simultaneously. New players should expect a rough first campaign before the systems click. The new Focus combat mechanic and the subskill trees are where Unfrozen earns points beyond pure nostalgia. Hero builds have genuine variance now, and the game punishes the old HoMM habit of clearing every neutral camp on the map by making army attrition a real cost. Each faction also offers two upgrade paths per unit type, which adds up to 126 creature variants across the game - a staggering amount of build variation for Early Access. The AI on Hard difficulty has been widely noted as brutally effective, so do not mistake the familiar UI for a friendly learning curve. The early map sections can feel intentionally constrained until your army reaches a threshold, and the first campaign act ends before the story gets going properly, both of which are fair criticisms at this stage. For multiplayer, Olden Era ships with online PvP, a hotseat mode for local play, premade scenarios, an Arena mode useful for pure combat practice without the full map economy, ranked play, and a map editor. For an Early Access product, the content breadth is genuinely impressive. The Steam rating sits at 87% positive across over 21,000 reviews, which for a niche turn-based strategy title is a strong early signal. The outstanding question is roadmap delivery: more factions are confirmed, additional campaign acts are promised, and balance passes will shift the faction meta. Schism in particular is currently the hardest faction to pilot effectively, and the gap between Dungeon and the bottom of the tier list is noticeable in practice. Unfrozen and Hooded Horse have indicated ongoing balance updates, so the standing of each faction can change meaningfully between patches. If HoMM III shaped how you think about strategy games, Olden Era is already worth the asking price - the bones are exactly right, the new systems add rather than dilute, and the Early Access caveat feels honest rather than exploitative. If you have never touched the series before, Temple is the faction to start with: well-rounded troops, a straightforward Law tree, and enough ranged output from turn one to survive early mistakes. Come in expecting a slow, deliberate game that rewards reading tooltips and punishes impatient clearing, and you will find one of the most satisfying strategy experiences in years.

Alex · Scout Team

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