Heroes of History review

This Heroes of History review is based on official sources and player reviews, not on our own play time. InnoGames' free game mixes city building through the ages with collecting historical heroes for real-time battles, Arena PvP and Alliance wars. It runs in a desktop browser, on Windows and Mac through Plarium Play, and on iOS and Android with shared progress. Money buys Gems, Antimatter for random summons and Season Pass tickets. Players rate it 4.71 stars from 15,531 US App Store ratings.

What is Heroes of History?

Heroes of History is a free city-builder and hero-collection game from InnoGames, the studio behind Forge of Empires and Elvenar. You grow a settlement from the Stone Age toward the future while a time-travel campaign, guided by Albert Einstein according to InnoGames, takes you through history. Heroes are historical and mythological figures such as Hercules, Napoleon, Medusa, Abraham Lincoln and Marie Curie, and you place them in teams for real-time battles.

Besides the campaign, the game has weekly Allied Culture city events with the Vikings, Egypt, China, the Maya and Arabia, a Treasure Hunt, monthly Seasons that each bring two new heroes, and Alliances. PvP comes in three forms: the Arena, with automated battles against other players; the Elite Arena, where each player sets up three teams; and Battle for Atlantis, where four Alliances fight over Nodes on one map.

The mobile app, listed on the App Store as Heroes of History: Epic Empire, dates from September 2024, and a browser version followed on November 27, 2024. The game celebrated its second anniversary in September 2026.

Is Heroes of History free to play?

Yes. The App Store and Google Play list Heroes of History as free, and the browser version and the Plarium Play release are free as well. Google Play notes that the app contains ads and the App Store lists Advertising; InnoGames' support site says the ads come from third-party networks.

InnoGames' support pages list the free ways to get Antimatter, the currency used to summon heroes: one free Antimatter every day in the in-game shop, quests and questlines, first-time campaign battles, Harbor shops that take currencies earned in the Arena and Treasure Hunt, Allied Culture events, seasonal events and the Fountain of Youth building. Every player can claim the free lane of each season's Season Pass, which includes Arcane Antimatter for that season's heroes.

Duplicate heroes are not wasted. They turn into Hero Essence for Awakening or, once a hero is fully awakened, into Chrono Crystals for the Chrono Shop.

Is Heroes of History pay to win? What money buys

As of October 30, 2026, the US App Store lists purchases from $2.99 to $99.99, most of them named simply In-game Purchase, plus a $9.99 item called Grand Architect's Favor. InnoGames' support pages describe what money buys: Gems, Antimatter bought with Gems on the Time Portal screen, Hero's Daily Delight (10 Antimatter at once plus 2 a day for 7 days), premium Epic or Legendary Season Pass tickets for the current season, premium expansions in Allied Culture events and time-limited offers. Prices in the browser version are on average 10% lower than in the apps.

Summons are random, and Apple lists Loot Boxes. A support article gives a standard 5-star chance of 0.5% per pull in the regular Time Portal, and its worked example has pity guaranteeing a 5-star hero after 200 pulls without one. Each portal shows its exact rates in the game, but no web page lists them all.

Those heroes fight other players in the Arena, the Elite Arena and Battle for Atlantis, where Alliance Nodes are defended by player heroes.

Based on what the official stores sell, we rate it as strongly pay to win; we will check this again when we play it ourselves.

Heroes of History on PC, Mac and mobile

Heroes of History runs in a browser, on Windows and Mac through Plarium Play, and on iOS and Android. InnoGames' support site sends desktop players to heroesgame.com for the browser version, and the link opens the game only on a desktop or laptop. On December 16, 2025, InnoGames released the game on Plarium Play, the PC and Mac launcher of Plarium, which like InnoGames belongs to MTG.

Progress moves between platforms once the account is bound to an email address in the settings. The support pages describe binding the email on mobile and then logging in with the same details in the browser or on Plarium Play; Plarium Play creates a new account on first launch unless you choose to log in with an existing one.

On phones, the App Store and Google Play list the game as Heroes of History: Epic Empire. The App Store lists no Mac compatibility for the iPad app, and there is no Steam or console version.

Heroes of History system requirements

Plarium's game page lists requirements for the Plarium Play version. The minimum is Windows 10 version 21H1 or Windows 11 21H2, or macOS Monterey 12 and later; an Intel Core i3 or AMD Athlon processor; Intel, AMD Radeon or NVIDIA GeForce graphics; 4 GB of RAM; DirectX 11; and 4 GB of storage. The recommended spec raises that to an Intel Core i5 or AMD Ryzen 5 and 8 GB of RAM, and also lists Windows 11 on Arm64.

For the browser version, InnoGames publishes no system requirements; its support site only has a help article for infinite loading in the browser.

On Apple devices, the App Store listing for version 1.56.2 requires iOS 15.0 or later on iPhone and iPod touch and iPadOS 15.0 or later on iPad, with a download of about 1.5 GB. The App Store lists 11 languages, including English, Spanish, French, German, Japanese and Korean.

Games like Heroes of History

These games from our catalog share Heroes of History's city building or its hero collection:

Forge of Empires: InnoGames' city builder that moves through historical eras, with a campaign map, a PvP Arena and Guild Battlegrounds, in the browser and on iOS and Android.

Rise of Cultures: InnoGames' historic city-building and civilization strategy game, in the browser and on iOS and Android.

Elvenar: InnoGames' fantasy city builder with Fellowships, trading and the Spire of Eternity, in the browser and on iOS and Android.

RAID: Shadow Legends: Plarium's turn-based Champion collector with Arena PvP and Clan Siege, free on Windows, macOS, iOS and Android.

Forge of Empires is the closest in structure, with eras and a city to grow, while RAID is closer on the hero-collection side.

• Forge of Empires
• Rise of Cultures
• Elvenar
• RAID: Shadow Legends