Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era
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I nearly fell out of my chair when I saw the news that Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era will be published by Hooded Horse, rather than Ubisoft. As a longtime fan of the venerable strategy series, I’ve been cautiously optimistic about its revival with Iratus developer Unfrozen at the helm. Giving the project to Hooded Horse is a good sign, even if Ubi still holds the rights. After mourning Heroes’ presumptive death more than once, though, I can’t help but wonder if the game can be anything more than clutching at the shadows of the past.
Heroic History
It’s clear that Olden Era is aimed squarely at players like me, who fondly remember the original games. Everything about it evokes the series’ high point, 1999’s Heroes of Might and Magic 3, which still has a dedicated ing all these years later. The maps, castles, and towns, gloriously rendered for modern hardware, are enough to bring retro tears to my eyes.
Even the game’s name suggests that the aim is a return to form, a resurrection of a forgotten past. Make no mistake, all anyone had to say was “the Iratus people are bringing back Heroes of Might and Magic” to get me on board, but I can’t help but wonder how much of the game will be carried by nostalgia.
I’ve played other games that have tried to fill the Heroes-shaped hole in my heart, most recently Lavapotion’s lovely Songs of Conquest. It does a great job of capturing the classic feel while devising new and exciting gameplay systems, but the core loop of exploration, economy, and combat feels dated. If Olden Era is gunning as hard as it seems to win over fans from the ‘90s, I can’t imagine that will change for the franchise’s triumphant return.
I’m sure there will be balance changes, as the old games had some notoriously broken builds, but other than that, Olden Era needs to offer more than a fresh coat of paint on gameplay that hasn’t changed since the Clinton Administration. My worry, of course, is that gamers don’t tend to like change very much, especially when it comes to the classics.
Heroes Take Risks
The new Heroes of Might and Magic can’t just be the same game we’ve been playing since 1999. 3DO understood this in their waning days, making some significant changes in Heroes 4. This divided the community, and while personally, HOMM4 is my favorite game in the series, Ubisoft rolled it back, taking the series forward from the fifth entry on.
I actually quite liked the Ubisoft games, with their new setting and story; what ultimately drove me away was getting locked out of my copies by a UPlay account tied to an email that no longer exists, despite owning the games on Steam.
I get that the franchise has been all but dead for years, and that if this game doesn’t succeed financially, Ubisoft could very well close the coffin lid for good. My question, then, is what does it offer besides nostalgia? What will keep players coming back after they’re done remembering how cool it was to unleash a stack of Black Dragons or have Sandro cast Chain Lightning through the enemy ranks? Heroes of Might and Magic needs to stand on its own, in 2025, guided by its past and not held up by it. I think with Unfrozen — and now Hooded Horse — behind the wheel, it has a chance to do just that.
