Ubisoft revives the Heroes of Might and Magic game series with a prequel, Olden Era

The Heroes of Might and Magic series of turn-based fantasy games first launched in 1995 and was a spin-off of the Might and Magic RPG series. Today, as part of Gamescom, Ubisoft, the current owners of the franchise, announced a new game in the series, Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era. This game will be the first title in the main series since Might & Magic Heroes VII launched in 2015.

In a blog post, Ubisoft stated that in terms of the series' storylines and lore, Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era will actually take place before the events of the first Might and Magic game. Players will control a hero who has to gather resources, build towns, and assemble armies. The game will then put those armies to work in fighting enemy forces.

Ubisoft added:

Expanding on the classic fundamentals of the series, Olden Era will introduce a number of new features: Players will have more control over how they level up heroes and their factions, for example, with faction-specific abilities, new systems for learning skills and magic spells, and artifacts that now impart bonuses if players equip more than one piece from a set.

The game will have a solo campaign but will also have one-on-one multiplayer arena modes or even bigger battles with up to eight players. The game will also support random map generation, and it will also come with an in-game editor so players can make their own maps and campaigns.

The game itself is being developed by the studio Unfrozen, who previously made the dark fantasy-themed roguelite RPG Iratus: Lord of the Dead.

Unfrozen and Ubisoft will launch Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era as an Early Access title on Valve's Steam service sometime in the first half of 2025. The full launch of the game will happen at a later timeframe.