Let me start this one out by prefacing that these are my first impressions of the game, and not a review. That’s set to arrive a couple of days before the game releases. That being said, don’t be surprised that I’m not going to go very much in-depth into my talking points, and I’m just going to do an overview on how I feel about Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era, now that I have a couple of games under my belt, and as I’m preparing to dish out my final judgement when the game finally comes out, on April 30th.

Truth be told, I considered myself a happy man in September, when I first penned my impressions for the game after a very limited demo-, and things really haven’t changed a whole lot since then. The exception being that most of my complaints were addressed, such as small fonts in the UI and a lack of mechanical explanations for some spells, with plenty of placeholder text everywhere.

As I have mentioned several times, I never really played any of the Heroes of Might and Magic games on the PC, and my experience was limited to Heroes of Might and Magic for Game Boy Color, from 2000. While the Game Boy version of the game isn’t quite on par with Heroes of Might and Magic 3, which came out that same year, one thing is certain: Olden Era fills me with so much nostalgia for a game I barely remember playing. So, if you’re a player looking for a Heroes game that brings back those old memories, I don’t think Olden Era will disappoint.

What I have been enjoying the most about Olden Era is how the game just embraces the whole idea of setting you free on a map, and then letting you just decide what you want to do on your own. No hand-holding, no mandatory quests, no linear progression across the map. You’re set free, a couple of units in the deck, and a city to command, and what happens next is totally up to you. It’s the kind of old-school design that I think works so well for the kind of game Heroes is supposed to be. Explore at your own (and your enemies’) pace, stock up on resources, build up your city and your army, and then duke it out in a final showdown. Just like I remember doing on Game Boy. The fact that I have been going back and back again to play Olden Era since I received my review key is the indicator I needed to conclude that I am having a blast with this game.

The exploration is always amazing, and from what I have gathered, there’s also a random map generator called “anarchy”, which should be great to avoid things becoming stale in the long run. The city-progression, despite being highly linear and similar across several factions, provides the player with an enticing carrot on a stick to work towards before the final showdown.

As for factions, while each of them is unique in its own way, and units behave substantially differently from one another, the city-progression being the same across all factions kind of makes them feel the same on the world map. In the turn-based combat, it’s a whole different story. The turn-based combat is by far the best part of Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era, and that’s where the different factions shine and stand out. Every faction has its own theme, from traditional knights in armor, necromancy, hive-mind, and a couple more. Different units, stats, and spells form the basis of a game that looks deceivingly simple on the surface, and quite easy to just pick up and have some fun, but also a title where there are a lot of combinations, builds, and optimizations to learn and discover.

Is Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era the sort of game that will please Heroes of Might and Magic 3 fans? I don’t think I can answer that, because I plan on picking up HMM3 after I’m done with Olden Era, but from my conversations with fans of the third title, they certainly seem to believe that Olden Era is the closest thing they have seen from the franchise.

To round up my first impressions, I’m having a ton of fun playing around with Olden Era, and I think it’s going to be one of those titles that might become an easy recommendation as an entry point for people who want to get into the turn-based strategy genre. It’s simple to pick up, has that addictive “one more turn” feel to it, and if the team decides to optimize the game for Steam Deck, it’s going to turn it into a great choice for something to play on the move, during travels, or vacations.

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