Age of Mythology: Retold Review – Still Classic

Age of Mythology: Retold Review

If you’re a fan of real-time strategy games, you know that the 1990s and early 2000s represented the genre’s Golden Age. Age of Empires, Command and Conquer and StarCraft stole headlines and topped the charts. They also defined the mechanics of the genre for years to come. 2002’s Age of Mythology followed on the heels of Ensemble Studios’ Age of Empires II and cleverly substituted legendary monsters and mythological gods for the usual evolving tech tree common to RTS games. Unsurprisingly a big hit, DLC followed in 2003 and an ultimate edition in 2014. Now there’s Age of Mythology: Retold. 

Age of Mythology: Retold sits smewhere in the middle ground between reskin and remake. With new models, new animations and much higher resolutions, Retold is definitely the best-looking version of the game. But the changes are deeper than surface-level shine. There is a very long list of subtle — and not so subtle — changes to the campaign, AI, units and mechanics. Some of these will only be noticed by veterans of the original.  The vast majority of changes are for the better.

Party of One

Let’s start with single player content, because while the PvP aspects are robust, many people will play Retold solo. In addition to the brief tutorial, which honestly doesn’t explain all that much, there are three extensive campaigns, offering over 50 voice-acted scenarios of story-focused game play. After completing the campaigns, players can turn to an endless series of skirmishes versus AI. Best of all, the game’s original, and very robust, map editor returns, complete with a UI circa 2002. I’ll happily admit that I’m one of those gamers who gets lost for hours in the editor, creating skirmish maps and testing them out. 

Multiplayer modes are what you’d expect, with 40 PvP maps, different modes and ranked play.

The original release included three Pantheons — Greek, Roman and Norse — with the Atlanteans added via an expansion. Retold includes all four, with the Chinese Pantheon coming soon. Everything looks sharp, colorful and much closer to current day standards in 4K. The graphics options are miles away from what was available in the early 2000s, when the idea of ray tracing in a game would have been unimaginable. Water looks beautiful. Buildings collapse much more believably. 

Spit Shine

Updates to the game’s sound design start with a rescored and rerecorded soundtrack, which makes a huge impact. The environmental audio and battle effects have been updated, too. The little breathy sigh when a unit pops out of construction is an iconic bit of RTS history. I’m glad they retained it.

Aside from the cosmetics and reconfigured campaign, a huge number of small and large tweaks to units, Pantheons and mechanics come with Retold. I’ll highlight just a few. The first — and I think most significant — centers on the way your population of workers assigns themselves tasks. With the new Villager Priority System, you can customize the way the AI prioritizes resource collection. There are six preset configurations. In one preset, for example, Age I villagers focus on food production but shift to gold mining in Age III. Some presets prioritize naval unit construction, others focus on a more balanced approach. If none of the presets do the trick, players can customize assignments. The developer says this “reduces the cognitive load” on players. I think that’s code for not having to wrangle errant villagers.

Another big change introduces an entirely new, final Age, called the Wonder Age. Building a wonder moves the player into this new period. The big focus is on the Pantheon’s god power. In the original, the player’s god power was a one-time-use-only event. In the Wonder Age, the game-changing god power can be “purchased” again. This changes the endgame significantly.

The last big change implements controller support. It feels natural. While veterans might balk at not using mouse and keyboard for their RTS games, it’s now possible to kick back and play from the couch.

A Long List but a Good One

The dozens of other changes are small, like the ability to adjust colors, change the difficulty more precisely and a huge number of quality-of-life and accessibility features. However, there’s nothing so dramatic that Age of Mythology loses what made it so fantastic back in 2002.

In its day, Age of Mythology introduced some compelling new ideas into the real time strategy genre. While I think it’s overdue for a complete remake, Age of Mythology: Retold is an excellent way to reacquaint players with a genuine classic, and a perfect introduction for gamers new to the title.

***PC code provided by the publisher for review***