Nearing its 30th anniversary, the legendary strategy series is finally back as Ubisoft surprised us all by announcing Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era at Gamescom 2024.

Set to release on Steam Early Access in the first half of 2025, Olden Era looks to continue the classic gameplay by drawing inspiration from arguably the best game of the series, Heroes of Might and Magic III.

“Heroes of Might and Magic III is a cult classic and one of the greatest strategy games of all time, perfecting and refining the already great formula established in Heroes I and II,” says Brand Director Eric Damian-Vernet at Ubisoft, adding that Olden Era also takes inspiration from other highly regarded installments, including Heroes of Might and Magic II and V. “With Olden Era, we go back to the origins of the series, aiming to recapture the same sense of magic and wonder of traversing a vibrant adventure map full of dangers and mysteries for the first time, building mighty faction towns and assembling massive armies of mythical creatures.”

In the release announcement, Ubisoft provided quite a lot of details from the upcoming game:

• The game is being developed by Unfrozen, creator of a tactical RPG Iratus: Lord of the Dead.
• Olden Era is set before the events of the first game, and will take players back to the world of Enroth and the continent of Jadame.
• New factions, biomes, and creatures.
• Turn-based gameplay.
• Players take control of a hero to find resources, build towns and castles, and gather armies of mythic creatures.
• 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.
• Units have secondary abilities that can be activated when a new energy meter fills.
• Hexagonal battle grid.
• A campaign and single maps for solo players.
• Multiplayer matches up to 8 players.
• Random map generator and a map editor.
• Six factions: Temple, Sylvan, Dungeon, Necropolis, the demon-corrupted insectoids of Hive, and another faction that will be unveiled later.
• New system of Faction Laws, which lets you level up your kingdom as well as your heroes by choosing perks.
• Heroes can now have subskills that augment their main skills with buffs and perks.

You can find more details and screenshots in the release announcement and wishlist the game on Steam.