Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era

As of the time of this review, this game does not offer proper PvE-content (nor true co-op vs AI). AI is too stupid to use the game's mechanics, so it simply resorts to cheating via summoning death stacks out of thin air before it throws its only attempt at a flimsy rush at you, then it stops doing anything, lays down, and waits for you to step on it. Devs promised to implement functional PvE by the end of Q3 2026. Here's to hoping. It looks beautiful, it sounds good, and PvP is probably fun to those who enjoy it. I'm not among those peers.

I was there my fellow gamer, 3000 years ago... where it all begun. I like to try new games and atempts, I am no bothered with NEW things, which is obligated to say if you ahve any critical views of this game on every forum and every time. I know that people do not like changes so pills like olden era can be hard to swallow. I could say that they knew they are doing something wrong since they call the game HEROES and an OLDEN ERA not like, NEW ERA. If it was called new era, We could assume it is brave new step into future... But let me go to the core of the problem I have with this game: - Game for kids. 3-6 years old. Thats it, thats what your game is. There is no single hint of evil in that game. Void faction, literally cthulu creatures have an lore like:"creatures appeard from the void looking to serve new master, and you worry not they are doing it willingly". And you could say "Man, they are playing with words. NO, they are not, every single ambigues thing in this game is explained to you that everybody is happy and smell flowers. So why we have to fight? lets stop making wars and have a tea, uncle Iroh agree with me here. Ah, yes I do not need to read that to play. Fair enough, lets move on: - Silly 3D models - just look at them.. they look like AI generated slop. I even Asked Chat GPT to generate me few units with prompt "Heroes 3 unit but more kid friendly" and I got similar things with similar lore. - I feel Like every hero is the same expect few individuals with real perks. - I do like skills for creatures, but making resource for every skill an ARMY resource feels... blank. Most of the time you will see one skill used only every battle sinc only that one unit has meaningfull skill t use. -Maps are made with like 6 buildings and you will see them repeat everywhere. - I am glad that you are adding aliances, thats good move. Here, have a cookie for good decision. To sum it up: Want a fresh take of heroes? If you are not bother with childification and uncanny feeling that you play the Heroes 3 game but inside My little Pony universe then I am sure you will enjoy it! It can be really good at times, but every time you stop to look on desing of a creature, place, map.. or try to immerse yourselve into the world that is when the game fails.

I'd like to recommend this game, but can't in its current state. I encountered no performance issues on higher-end 6 year old hardware. The campaign is decent enough, if quite incomplete. Act 1 is 5ish missions long (say, 10-15 hours), but the player still hasn't unlocked all buildings or features/systems that are available, nor encountered every faction. The story is pretty bog-standard for the genre. If they add another 1 - 2 Acts of similar length I'd say it's probably a buy if you enjoy the campaign of these games. PvE broadly is not good as of this version. On what are normally fairly modest difficulty settings for experienced players of the genre (mix of hard - normal) the AI can just crush you. Not you fight a retreating battle, regroup, and have a semi-enjoyable back and forth. Nope, your main hero was exploring, ended their turn, and out of the fog of war their enemy hero comes and beats you before the 3rd turn while their stacks are almost entirely intact. I'm not a competitive player by any means, but have a decent number of hours in the genre and this is the worst balance I've seen.

Рука сильно тянулась поставить палец вверх. Как минимум из-за того, что я бесконечно возвращался мыслями в школьные годы, когда залипали с другом в тройку по hot seat. Но, увы, не могу. Тем более казалось бы нужно поддерживать такие начинания, вдруг решат ремейкнуть мои любимые M&M VI и VII, но к третьей миссии кампании игра начала нереально душить. Если не брать в расчет тройку, то четверка и пятерка для меня на три головы выше чем Olden Era. От игры дико веет каким-то нейрослопом. Или как будто играешь в какую-то мобилку. Сложно объяснить. На карте в каком рандомном хаосе натыканы шахты, мобы и бесконечные "данжи" - зайти, перебить мобов, чтобы получить золото/артефакт. Да, вроде бы все герои про это, но там ты уже издалека видел что где находится и что тебе нужно, а тут все сливается в какую-то цветовую кашу. С четверки я начал понимать, что мне нравится читать портянки текста с описанием сюжета во время миссий, отчего вроде бы одинаковый геймплей становился интересным от миссии к миссии. Прямо как книгу интересную читал интерактивную. Тут опять таки будто сгенерированные нейросеткой диалоги с никакими персонажами. А выбор вариантов ответа в диалогах. Ну такое, мне не зашло. Вместе с общим дизайном похоже на какой-то клуб романтики. Города. Я так любил отстраивать каждый и любоваться ими. Тут порой не сразу получается заметить что ты вообще построил. Короче, если вы лютый фанат и давно хотелось чего-то нового по Героям, то однозначно отлично, конкурентов все равно нет. Если брать как игру отдельно, то я бы лучше переиграл в пятерку. ЗЫ. Отдельный респект разрабам за то, что дожив до сракалетнего возраста я наконец увидел наидушнейшее обучение, к которому еще и привязана ачивка, я испил эту чашу страданий до дна.

Fan of Heroes II and III? Do not buy this desecration. This was made by and for self proclaimed modern, theater-girlbosses who like cartoonishly bright and flat color pallets. The type of people that think they should dress up as clowns while bandying pronouns and rainbows. Everywhere you look, it's just bad. Dialogue, story, gameplay, mechanics, music. A desecration, I tell you.

I've played much worse games to be honest...but the dumb enemies' AI completely kills this game for me. This is still in early access so there is hope they can fix that until the full release...if they ever fix it, that is. Until then it's a refund for me.

I rarely post reviews on Early Access titles, but the recent patch notes made it a request, so this is mostly feedback for Unfrozen; I'm assuming/hoping they're going to scrape the reviews for keywords to prioritize content. HoMM:OE has all the makings of a terrific entry into the HoMM franchise. I haven't been interested in a new HoMM title since HoMM 3. So why the negative review? Well, the only way I ever engaged in HoMM was hotseat PvE coop, and in that regard, Olden Era is currently an absolute failure. The AI is an absolute joke, and several months in, we're still waiting for a whiff of PvE content. In the meantime, Unfrozen seems to be obsessed with focusing on PvP. Devs, if you're listening, you have an incredible framework here, but I suspect that the majority of your playerbase is interested in playing some coop free-for-alls with friends. I'll adjust my review once the game is fully released or I become aware of changes to shift early access development focus from PvP to PvE.