My deep-down reaction when I first heard about Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era was, “What’re ya doin’?” Does anybody really want a hex-based strategy game these days, particularly one whose glory days ended 20 years ago? Well, as it turns out, the answer is a resounding “yes,” as publisher Hooded Horse announced that the game sold more than 250,000 copies in its first day of early access.

That’s a big number, but it’s not the only impressive stat: 91% of the more than 3,500 user reviews on Steam are positive, adding up to a “very positive” overall rating, and it hit a peak concurrent player count of nearly 52,000 on Steam. Those are Helldivers 2 numbers, baby. HoMM:OE is also riding high on Steam’s top-selling games chart.

Over 250,000 copies sold in less than 24 hours. 91% positive reviews on Steam.Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era has had an incredible launch. We’re so thrilled that players are loving this game as much as we’ve loved publishing it. 💛Congratulations to the @unfrozenofficial.bsky.social team!

— @hoodedhorse.bsky.social (@hoodedhorse.bsky.social.bsky.social) 2026-05-01T21:22:35.434Z

“We are still over the moon and cannot thank you enough for believing in us and our project!” Hooded Horse and developer Unfrozen wrote in a Steam update. “This is a childhood dream come true for the whole team and we promise to use this opportunity you’ve given us to the best of our abilities!”

From a more practical perspective, the strong start means the game has already recouped its development costs, a vital achievement for an early access game with more development ahead of it.

I should probably clarify that I didn’t expect Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era to be a bad game, and it’s clearly quite the opposite. PC Gamer strategy pro Fraser Brown declared when it launched that HoMM:OE “isn’t a reimagining or a divisive reinterpretation, it’s just a brilliant strategy game,” adding that even though it’s only just kicked off in early access, “it’s already great.”

What I clearly underestimated was the level of demand for a game that’s so entirely unabashed about embracing a very different, long-ago era of gaming. That’s on me, but this is one instance where I’m actually quite happy to be wrong. If you remain unconvinced, you can check it out for yourself, for free, courtesy of a demo available on Steam.

Unfrozen and Hooded Horse also dropped the first patch for Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era today, a small one addressing some of the issues that came up at launch. The full patch notes are below.

• Bug fixes
  • Fixed an issue where hotkeys would fail to save or reset correctly.
  • Fixed the display of Credits in Simplified and Traditional Chinese, Japanese and Korean.
  • Fixed data loading issues for the leaderboard and profile in some versions.
  • Temporarily disabled detection of unsupported peripherals (such as gamepads, steering wheels, pedals) to prevent conflicts with keyboard and mouse controls. An option to enable these devices will return as an experimental feature in a future update.
• Network
  • Optimized analytics and data saving for online games launched from the lobby.
  • Fixed a rare server error occuring in the lobby.
• Balance
• Zookeper
  • Fixed template rules that could cause launch errors or crash during gameplay.
• Symmetry
  • Fixed elevation issues that caused incorrect placement of Hell Light Arena.
  • Fixed template rules that could cause launch errors or crash during gameplay.
• Arcade
  • Added Dragon Utopias to the central area.
  • Reduced the number of Pandora’s Boxes containig creatures in the central area.
  • Adjusted the value of Dragon Utopias and Legendary Artifacts.
  • Reduced the number of points of interest with multiple rewards.
  • Increased the number of points of interest with single reward.
• Sprint
  • Removed Pandora’s Boxes that grant experience.
  • Increased the number of artifacts.
  • Reduced the number of Pandora’s Boxes containing creatures in the penultimate (6th) area.
  • Added Dragon Utopias to the penultimate (6th) area.
  • Adjusted the distribution of reward values across areas 4—7.
• Localization
  • Fixed minor typos in the Russian localization.
  • Removed an extra colon from main menu button in the Spanish localization.
  • Fixed a typo in the bug report interface in the Polish localization.
  • Fixed the description of Self‑Reconstruction ability for the Lich Dragon across all languages.
  • Fixed font size issues on the clock in Simplified and Traditional Chinese.
  • Fixed spacing issues in the Ukrainian localization.
  • Fixed several missing symbols in Simplified and Traditional Chinese, Korean, and Japanese.