Strategy fans have spoken – Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era's fae faction "wasn't meeting expectations" and has been renamed

• Copy link
• Facebook
• X
• Pinterest
• Flipboard
• Email

Share this article 0 Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Sign up to the GamesRadar+ Newsletter

Weekly digests, tales from the communities you love, and more

By submitting your information you agree to the Terms & Conditions and Privacy Policy and are aged 16 or over.

You are now subscribed

Your newsletter sign-up was successful

Want to add more newsletters?

Join the club

Get full access to premium articles, exclusive features and a growing list of member rewards.

Explore An account already exists for this email address, please log in. Subscribe to our newsletter

After passionate fans called out one of Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era's factions, developer Unfrozen has renamed it ahead of the Early Access launch.

"The name Sylvan is very heavily associated with the world of Ashan and with this imagery of like Wood Elves and Treants, and our faction wasn't exactly meeting those expectations for people," Unfrozen's community manager Bart Podress-Lezsek told GamesRadar+ in an interview.

"So we took a lot of feedback stating that they would like to see either a more woodland-themed focus in the faction, or maybe some other change. So we looked into that, we checked what we could do, and we just decided on a name change."

Article continues below

The team of strategy experts landed on the name Grove instead, which better represents "what the faction is meant to be – a wild forest of various fae creatures and elemental beings."

The change also sets Grove apart from Heroes 5's own Sylvan faction, where pixies, wood elves, and unicorns can be found. "In Might and Magic 8 [the area is] called simply Murmurwoods, and it is actually a bunch of [groves] with like druidic circles and so on. So the name just fit, and it matches the expectations better, too," Podress-Leszek adds to reinforce the team's decision.

Unfrozen has been vocal about its championing of player voice and how integral it has been throughout its development journey so far, having patched the hugely successful Steam Next Fest demo off the back of player feedback at the end of 2025. The team itself consists of die-hard Heroes fans who are every bit as passionate as those who'll be sitting down to play Olden Era's Early Access launch in just a few short weeks, and I'll be proud to count myself among them come April 30.

Check out our Heroes of Might and Magic: Olden Era Big Preview hub for more hands-on takes and interviews with the devs

Sign up to the GamesRadar+ Newsletter

Weekly digests, tales from the communities you love, and more

TOPICS CATEGORIES

Jasmine Gould-WilsonSenior Staff Writer, GamesRadar+

Jasmine is a Senior Staff Writer at GamesRadar+. Raised in Hong Kong and having graduated with an English Literature degree from Queen Mary, University of London, she started her games journalism career as a freelancer with TheGamer and Tech Radar Gaming before joining GamesRadar+ full-time in 2023. As part of the Features team, her duties include attending game previews and key international conferences such as Gamescom and Digital Dragons in between regular interviews, opinion pieces, and the occasional news or guides stint. In her spare time, you'll likely find Jasmine thinking/talking about Resident Evil, purchasing another book she's unlikely to read, or complaining about the weather.

View More

You must confirm your public display name before commenting

Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.

Logout LATEST ARTICLES

1. 1Stranger Things: Tales from '85 release schedule – what time is the Stranger Things spin-off on Netflix?
2. 2Fallout co-creator Tim Cain says good level designers shouldn't "assume anything the player is going to do in a particular order"
3. 3Christopher Nolan's upcoming epic The Odyssey will be shorter than Oppenheimer's 3 hours, producer says
4. 4Final Fantasy 14 patch 7.5 teases return of one of the JRPG series' greatest villains, Kefka – and I think he might be the MMO's new Ultimate boss
5. 5The new Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 is doing a lot with its extra wattage, but I'm bracing myself for the price tag