There were two kinds of gamers when I was a kid; Age of Empires fans, or Age of Mythology fans. Even though I played both, Age of Empires II was the game that I stuck with and even play to this day. The definitive edition of Age of Empires II breathed new life into the classic RTS, bringing new and old players into the game and even revitalizing a small but dedicated esport scene. Age of Mythology was always the more whimsical sibling of the Age of Empire series, and when this new remaster was announced, I was excited to see how it would affect the current fandom of classic RTS games.
Age of Mythology: Retold is developed by World’s Edge, Forgotten Empires, Tantalus Media, CaptureAge, and Virtuos Games, and is published by Xbox Game Studios. The game introduces modern graphics and accessibility features to the original gameplay and stories, with a polished multiplayer experience and official modding support. I was excited to experience the mythical stories again and test my RTS skills in a new and unique environment.
The first campaign of Retold, Fall of the Trident, took me more than 15 hours to finish. I was impressed with the graphics and animations from the first moment, and I quickly fell in love with the game like I was 10 years old. The campaign design of retro games truly was impressive. The first campaign follows the story of the Greek hero Arkantos, as he receives a vision from the goddess Athena and is set on a new path that takes him across the world. There are 30 chapters in the first campaign, each with an engaging story, various goals and victory conditions, and unique challenges and environments. There are tens of hours of high-quality single-player content in Retold, which can be appealing both for older players to relive their nostalgia with upgraded visuals and for new players to experience a well-designed campaign for the first time.
The main appeal of Retold to me, is how different it feels to other RTS games on the market. The main gameplay loop is very familiar; create villagers, gather resources, and build an army to defeat your opponent. But the main difference is the addition of deities, unique powers, and mythical units. There are four cultures to choose from, with 13 different gods to start with. Each god grants us unique units, powers, and features that can affect our game style and strategies from the beginning, and each time we advance to a new age, we get to choose from two more gods with different rewards. These powers and mythical units have significant effects on combat and offer a lot of options for strategizing, planning, and reacting to your opponent’s decisions. It’s also a spectacular sight to see god powers in action destroying enemy units or empowering your army.
One of the biggest upgrades to the original game is the graphics and animations. Retold looks like a modern title, but it still preserves the authenticity and charm of the original game. The environments look breathtaking, and the models and animations are familiar yet in higher fidelity and resolution. But the crown jewel of the graphics is the visual effects of godpowers and mythical units. I never got tired of summoning lightning strikes to kill powerful enemies or causing earthquakes to tear down their buildings. While I don’t remember the original game’s sound design, Retold is a great experience overall with decent voice acting, clear audio cues, and atmospheric music.
The other upgrade to the original game is its modern accessibility features. In recent years, RTS games have no longer been PC exclusives, and thus have received many gameplay features that allow console players to play these games with controllers. A side effect of these transitions is the introduction of these features in the PC version of RTS games as well. Back in the day, you needed high focus and ridiculous actions per minute to be able to compete with other players, but these accessibility features reduce the number of tasks that we need to keep track of by automating village and unit production, scouting, and even economy management. While these features make learning the game easier and playing multiplayer more accessible, they are still not as optimized as having a high APM or practiced build orders. They create a better new player experience, but they don’t affect the more competitive side of ranked multiplayer negatively.
Another great feature of Retold, is the official mod support and in-game editor. This allows for new and fun experiences as more players use these tools and create maps and mods for the game, and also gives competitive players options for reducing visual clutter and quality of life features that they need. The game also offers expansive hotkey customization, and you can map out many different interactions to your preferences.
While Retold fixes a lot of outdated mechanics from the original title, there are a couple of issues that still persist. Pathing of units can be quite frustrating at times, and they require more micromanaging to do what you need them to do. The gridless building system allows a lot of freedom in base building, but the snapping of buildings together is inconsistent and can cause weird pathing and even trap your own villagers. Also, certain hero units have special abilities that let them jump or fly over to their target, and more than a handful of times I found them getting themselves stuck in the terrain because of their jumps and I ended up disabling these particular abilities.
Overall, Age of Mythology: Retold is a great return to a classic title, offering a beautiful and nostalgic experience and tens of hours of entertainment even if you are not interested in the multiplayer side of the game. I’m not sure if the game can bring over a considerable portion of the RTS player base from titles such as Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition, but it does offer a more fantastical and unpredictable experience that might be a refreshing change of taste for some.
Nima played Age of Mythology: Retold on PC with a review code provided by Microsoft.
