Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era Preview — Early Access Impressions

To be honest, I was somewhat surprised to learn that Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era would launch in Early Access rather than straight into version 1.0. The reason was that last year the game received a content-rich demo that already felt like Early Access at the time. It also immediately came across as a quality product that only needed some minor polishing. Nevertheless, the developers decided not to rush the final release and chose the path of full-fledged Early Access instead, which speaks to their commitment to the project. The same can be seen in how seriously they treat community feedback: many weak points of the demo have been improved. That means the rough edges of Early Access will almost certainly be smoothed out in a similar way over the coming months.

Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era is an unusual entry in the series. It tries to appeal as much as possible to fans of the widely beloved Heroes of Might and Magic 3, using its formula as a foundation. At the same time, it experiments with that formula quite boldly. Olden Era borrows ideas from different Heroes games as well as elements from other 4X strategies — by the way, you can read about the most interesting representatives of the genre in our list of the best grand strategy games.

In other words, on the one hand, this is a game with an isometric camera and two-dimensional battles on a hexagonal battlefield with turn-based initiative, just like HoMM 3. On the other hand, it is a strategy game where each faction essentially has its own analogue of a technology tree — something you expect to see in Civilization, but not in Heroes.

Naturally, finding the balance between old and new is an extremely meticulous task, and one that can truly be handled well only through trial and error. That is what a large demo was needed for, and that is what Early Access is needed for now. Last year’s demo revealed a certain messiness in the game design: in some areas, the experimental concepts did not fit entirely smoothly into the established HoMM 3 formula that serves as the backbone of Olden Era. For fuller context, I recommend reading our hands-on impressions from the Heroes of Might & Magic: Olden Era demo — it will make it easier to understand the path the project has taken over the past six months.

For example, in Olden Era the developers added a new and extremely important resource — alchemical dust. Without it, you cannot construct buildings for upgrading top-tier units, and it is also used to upgrade artifacts and spells. The idea of a new valuable resource was welcome, but the implementation left much to be desired: in the demo, alchemical dust was extremely difficult to obtain. In Early Access, the developers have balanced this aspect much more sensibly: alchemical dust now appears on maps far more often, and towns can even construct a building that produces it. Players still need to choose which artifacts to prioritize for upgrades, since supplies of this valuable resource can be spent quickly, but they now replenish naturally over the course of the game. There is no longer any need to run around the map looking for special exchange points, which were the main source of alchemical dust in the demo.

There are many improvements like this. The battlefield has become larger, and the interface, while still far from ideal, is now more intuitive. On the town-building screen, for instance, all key information is now placed in the upper-right corner. You no longer have to scan the entire monitor just to perform the simplest settlement management actions or recruit units.

However, my main complaint about Heroes of Might & Magic: Olden Era was not related to any particular mechanic or gameplay feature, but to the game’s completely generic visual style, typical of cheap mobile fantasy strategies. Unfortunately, the art direction has not changed fundamentally, and it is still the weakest part of the game, even if this is ultimately a subjective matter. Still, there has been progress even here: for example, some units now look more interesting than before — the Necropolis knights, for instance — and no longer blend together quite so much into a monotonous mass. Some designs are genuinely original, not only in terms of execution but conceptually as well: adding infernal beetles instead of generic horned Inferno demons is an excellent and fresh idea.

Since we have already touched on the art, it is worth noting that many players criticize Heroes of Might & Magic: Olden Era for poor map readability compared to HoMM 3. In other words, they say it is not always easy to distinguish the objects you can interact with. I cannot say this is such a major problem, especially since the options menu includes plenty of settings that can improve this part of the experience. Besides, it is not entirely clear whether HoMM 3’s art direction is objectively that much more readable, or whether those of us who spent sleepless nights playing the third Heroes at friends’ and classmates’ homes have simply become used to its look.

What impresses most about Olden Era is its gameplay variety. And it is not just that the game offers six factions to choose from, all distinct from one another — that is nothing new for the series. However, this installment gives players more options than usual in terms of how they can approach their chosen faction.

A large part of that comes from the law system — the very analogue of a technology tree mentioned earlier. Individual laws let you create powerful synergies between certain unit types and a hero’s abilities or spells.

For example, Necropolis has units like armored hounds or merchants of death that may seem weaker than their direct counterparts, but they deal DoT damage over subsequent turns. If you want, you can build your entire strategy around such units. To do that, you need to choose the “Black Death” law, which increases damage from periodic effects, and also recruit plague liches: they have an excellent ability that immediately triggers all DoT effects currently applied to the target.

There are quite a few builds like this to come up with for every faction. On top of that, the more elaborate hero progression system adds even more variety: now it matters not only which skills you choose, but also which subskills. Should a hero specializing in offense take +1 attack for all units, or +15% damage only for ranged troops? Olden Era regularly forces you to make difficult but highly engaging development choices. They are made even more complex by the fact that many subskills also have synergies with skills from other categories.

Moreover, Olden Era has a full subclass system as well, with four subclasses per faction, allowing players to unlock extremely powerful hero abilities by choosing a specific combination of skills. For instance, a necromancer can develop into the Soulweaver subclass, which allows them to summon a squad of spirits on the spot where enemy units have fallen.

All in all, a match with the same faction or even the same hero in Olden Era almost never feels like the previous one, provided you are willing to experiment with laws, unit types, and skills.

The game is not only impressive in terms of gameplay variety, but also genuinely satisfying in how much content it already offers at this stage. Olden Era has a wealth of interesting map templates for single-player battles against AI, hotseat matches, and online battles. There are maps where you need to defeat all enemies and capture every town, others where it is enough to defeat the opposing hero, and even scenarios built around capturing and holding the capital.

These templates differ not only in map size and victory conditions, but also in their basic rules. In some matches, the player controls only one hero, and those are usually the battles I find the most engaging. Though of course, there are also fans who prefer commanding an entire crowd of heroes. That is the beauty of Olden Era — there are enough options here that no one will feel left out.

PvP fans have flocked to the new Heroes like moths to a flame, and for good reason: fighting other players here is an enormous amount of fun. That applies both to the arena mode, where everything is focused purely on battles between armies, and to the special competitive maps. They are designed so that a match usually takes no more than two hours.

At the moment, the dullest mode is probably the story campaign. It is important to note here that it is not finished yet: only the first act has been released so far. Even so, the missions I played did not hook me. The story about a demonic threat (hello, Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos) is not especially original or compelling, the dialogue between the main characters is hard to call a masterpiece of writing, and the low-budget production values only make the overall impression worse. The game is badly lacking in-engine cutscenes at the very least. Still, I cannot rule out the possibility that personal bias is at play here as well: in Heroes, a regular skirmish has always interested me more than more linear scripted missions.

Do not let the “Early Access” label mislead you — Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era is many times more polished than most games released in Early Access. Yes, the developers still have work to do: the interface could use further refinement, the balance of some weaker factions needs improvement, and the story campaign is not finished yet. Even so, this is already a great continuation of the series — better than most Heroes of Might and Magic clones and roughly on par with the fifth Heroes game. Based on early impressions.

It is possible that the final release will be able to rival the third game in quality, but Olden Era should still not be seen as a replacement for that legendary classic. Similar though they are, these are fundamentally different games: HoMM 3 captivates with the simplicity of its design, whereas this new entry shines because of the depth of its interconnected systems. Which one is better depends on your mood or your personal preferences.