Olden Era Hits 1 Million Sales as Roadmap Lands

Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era has sold more than one million copies on Steam in its first month, and on May 28 its developer published the early access roadmap that maps the next year of work. The plan promises a cooperative Teamplay mode, a rebalance of Hero skills, an Underground terrain layer, a finished single-player campaign and a new player-versus-environment mode, all rolled out in stages while the game stays in early access.

That milestone matters because the last mainline entry, Might & Magic Heroes VII, stalled in 2015 and left the series idle for nearly a decade. The roadmap is the clearest signal yet that the gamble of reviving it through outside hands is being treated as a long game, not a quick cash-in.

The Numbers Behind the Million-Copy Run

Olden Era launched into early access on April 30 across Steam and PC via the Microsoft Store. Within 24 hours it had moved 250,000 copies, enough to clear a budget the studio has pegged at roughly $5.5 million. The first month then pushed total sales past seven figures.

Player activity backed up the sales. The game peaked above 60,000 concurrent players in early May, a figure that put it among the busier strategy titles on Steam at the time, and reviews have stayed warm rather than cooling after the launch rush.

• One million copies sold on Steam in the first month of early access.
• 250,000 sales inside the opening 24 hours, clearing the roughly $5.5 million development budget on day one.
• 88% positive across more than 14,000 Steam user reviews.

For a turn-based strategy game in a genre often written off as niche, those are unusually strong opening figures. They are also the context for why the studio felt confident enough to publish a roadmap stretching across the rest of the year.

How a Dormant Franchise Landed With Unfrozen and Hooded Horse

The Heroes series belongs to Ubisoft, which has owned the Might and Magic license since 2003. After Might & Magic Heroes VII shipped in September 2015 to a lukewarm reception, the publisher halted further development within months. On Steam, Heroes VII still sits at just 52% positive across its roughly 2,576 reviews, a number that explains why Ubisoft quietly shelved the line.

Rather than build the next game in-house, Ubisoft licensed it out. Development went to Unfrozen, the studio behind the roguelike deckbuilder Iratus: Lord of the Dead, with publishing handled by Hooded Horse, the company that backed strategy hits like Manor Lords. That structure put a beloved but fragile property in the hands of two smaller outfits with strong genre credibility and lower overheads.

Olden Era leans hard into franchise nostalgia. It is set about 500 years before the first game, on the continent of Jadame on the world of Enroth, returning to the series’ original continuity rather than the reboot lore Ubisoft introduced after taking over. For long-time fans, that placement signals a deliberate appeal to the Heroes III era many consider the high point.

The split also lowered the stakes. A $5.5 million budget is a fraction of what a flagship publisher spends on a tentpole release, so breaking even on the first day turned the project from a risk into a free run at upside. That is the wager Ubisoft placed, and the sales figures are the early return on it.

What the Three-Stage Roadmap Adds

The roadmap is organized around community feedback gathered since launch, and it splits the work into three rough phases plus a band of ongoing support. The headline near-term additions, a Teamplay mode for cooperative matches, a Hero skill rebalance and upgrades to the random map generator, are the three items players asked for most loudly in the opening weeks.

Further out, the studio is promising deeper structural work: an Observer mode for watching matches, a rework of the Elite Class units, improved matchmaking, and a completed single-player campaign. Quality-of-life touches, new heroes, spells and creatures, plus artificial-intelligence (AI, the computer-controlled opponents) tweaks are described as continuous rather than tied to any single drop.

The Underground terrain addition is the one veterans will watch closest. Subterranean map layers were a defining feature of earlier Heroes games, and adding them changes how maps are built and fought over rather than just bolting on cosmetic content.

Why Game Pass Changes the Math for Windows Players

Olden Era is not only a paid early access title. It arrived on PC Game Pass and Game Pass Ultimate on day one as a Game Preview release, which means subscribers can play the work-in-progress build at no extra cost while it is updated.

That distribution choice matters for how the roadmap reads. A subscriber does not have to weigh whether to buy now or wait for a more complete game, because the cost of trying it is already folded into a monthly fee. For Windows players in particular, the calculation looks different from a one-time purchase.

• Buy it outright for $39.99 on Steam or the Microsoft Store and keep it through full release.
• Play through Game Pass on PC at no separate charge, with cloud saves and Xbox achievements supported.
• Wait for 1.0 if you would rather skip a build that the developer openly labels unfinished.

One caveat for console owners: the game is currently PC only. There is no Xbox console version listed, so the Game Pass route applies to the PC tier rather than play on an Xbox Series machine.

Where the Bet Could Still Wobble

Strong sales do not guarantee a smooth early access run, and the roadmap quietly admits how much is still missing. The most obvious gap is the incomplete single-player campaign, the mode many casual buyers expect to be the main draw, which is listed among the longer-term goals rather than the immediate ones.

Balance is the other pressure point. A Hero skill rebalance and an Elite Class rework are both flagged early, which is a candid signal that the competitive layer is not settled yet. Multiplayer strategy communities can turn quickly when patches reshuffle the units and skills they have already learned, and the studio has set itself the task of doing exactly that in public.

The roadmap also carries the usual early access hedge that items can move or change. The studio expects to spend roughly a year in early access before a full launch, which gives it room to deliver but also a long window in which the launch-month enthusiasm has to be kept alive through steady updates. If the near-term drops land on time and the campaign arrives in good shape, the case for the outside-studio model gets stronger with every patch. If the cadence slips and the player peak keeps sliding from its early-May high, the same roadmap starts to read like a list of promises rather than a plan.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era on Game Pass?

Yes. It is included in PC Game Pass and Game Pass Ultimate as a Game Preview title, so subscribers can play the early access build without buying it separately.

How much does Olden Era cost to buy?

The early access version is $39.99 (about ₹1,499) to purchase outright on Steam or the Microsoft Store, which keeps your copy through the full release.

When will Olden Era leave early access?

The developer expects to spend roughly a year in early access before a full 1.0 launch, with features rolling out in stages, so a finished release is most likely in 2027 rather than this year.

How many factions does Olden Era have?

Six playable factions are available at launch, including Temple, Grove, Dungeon and Necropolis, with two more rounding out the roster.

Does the game have a full single-player campaign yet?

Not in full. A completed single-player campaign is on the long-term part of the roadmap, alongside an Ironman mode, so the current build offers only part of the planned story content.

Can you play Olden Era on Xbox consoles?

No. The game is PC only for now, available on Steam and via the Microsoft Store on Windows, with no Xbox Series console version currently listed.