The developers from Unfrozen (Iratus: Lord of the Dead) have shared a new blog post for the upcoming Heroes of Might & Magic: Olden Era. In it, the team goes into detail what does the HoMM series mean for them, and how they approach the game design of their project.
“We’ve been playing Heroes for half our lives. We wanted to see a new installment just as much as you. And as the saying goes, when you want something done right, do it yourself. At the time it didn’t seem like a new HoMM game was coming, so in 2020, we made a demo and approached Ubisoft, who in 2021 accepted our vision and gave the project a go. You can imagine how thrilled we were.”
The developers have explained that when working with a legendary franchise such as Heroes, the foremost goal is to ensure that the project stays faithful to the series’ DNA. Evolution, not revolution. To that effect, players will find many familiar systems: artifacts, turn-based battles on the hexagonal grid, hero level-ups. However, to prevent it from being simply repeating what came before, they will come with extra touches that will keep the experience fresh.
A similar approach is taken on all levels. For example, the factions are a mix of old classics (Temple, Necropolis, Dungeon to an extent) and new ideas (Hive and more). The visuals are rendered in full 3D, but the perspective is familiar. The events of the game take place back on the world of Enroth, but the continent of Jadame had never been explored in HoMM.
The third pillar of Olden Era game development is the communication with community. The game will be coming to Steam Early Access soon, and your opinion and feedback are extremely important to the developers.
