Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era will release in PC early access on April 30th, Hooded Horse and Ubisoft have announced. The new strategy RPG from developers Unfrozen is the first freshly baked HOMM game in over a decade, and will launch with a mixture of familiar and new modes, spanning singleplayer and multiplayer.

If you’re new to the series – there is the faint but horrifying possibility that you were not yet born, when the last one came out – it’s a turn-based, empire-building affair, where you alternate between tending to your towns and sending heroes, fantasy beasties and armies on quests.

Ubisoft were going to publish Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era all by themselves, but then they came down with a nasty case of Massive Corporate Restructuring, and decided to hand “day-to-day operations” to Hooded Horse.

Ubisoft’s exact rationale for putting Hooded Horse on the ticket is unknown, but presumably it will allow them to cut costs, which is a thing they really love doing lately. Hooded Horse also have ample experience peddling strategy games and RPGs to the unwashed masses.

As for what you’re getting in the early access launch, the press release breaks down the plan as follows: “Conquer both procedurally generated and hand-crafted maps, raise magnificent cities, and field massive armies of mythical creatures to vanquish enemies across the narrative campaign, Single Hero and Classic skirmish modes, Arena mode, premade scenarios, as well as multiplayer.” Read more on the Microsoft Store and Steam. There’s still a demo on Steam, as it happens.

Alternatively, you could try Hooded Horse stablemate Endless Legend 2, which isn’t lightyears away from HOMM in its balance of questing and empire-building, though it has a lot more genocidal cockroaches than minotaurs – learn more in my Endless Legend 2 early access write-up.

.