We don't really know. Decades ago we would have said yes, the universe was metal poor (metal being any element heavily than hydrogen). But these days the composition of early stars that we can detect have too much metal too early.

hard to know with so few data points

On the one hand, (primitive) life appeared on Earth almost as soon as conditions allowed it.

On the other, the early universe — this particular "warm bath" era — had approximately zero oxygen with which to make water. Right temperature, just (IIRC, but I'm not certain) zero stars yet, so nothing to make things heavier than what came out of Big Bang nucleosynthesis.