Theos: Cities of Myth Preview
I’ve always been a sucker for city-building games and RTS games like Age of Empires. There’s something special about crafting a thriving city and managing the lives and happiness of its citizens. No matter what era the game is set in, the player usually assumes — at least metaphorically — the role of either a benevolent or less charitable god. In Theos: Cities of Myth, the player’s city is built under the watchful gaze of a literal god. Theos: Cities of Myth takes inspiration from the heroes and gods of ancient Greece. Whether you choose Athena or Zeus — just two from a long list — your task is to appease them.
Classic Lines
Playing an early build/demo of Theos: Cities of Myth is immediately an exercise is nostalgia. The visuals, terrain, and tile-based maps are clean, colorful, and intentionally retro. This means there’s not a lot of realism or detail. Instead, the stylized art brings to mind city builders and strategy games from the genre’s golden age. Zoomed in, your little citizens and warriors move with pretty choppy animations. If you love retro-inspired games, Theos: Cities of Myth is definitely in your wheelhouse.
The hook in Theos: Cities of Myth is that when you start a game, you also pick a Greek god or hero. Your patron god is invariably both powerful and fickle. They offer special abilities, unique buildings, military units, and even supernatural powers. At the same time, their outsized egos demand dedicated statues, temples, and priests, or they can turn wrathful. If you’re guessing that part of Theos: Cities of Myth is god-on-god combat, you’re correct. Or, more precisely, one god-powered city versus another.
Building Up
The lion’s share of time in Theos: Cities of Myth is spent building and upgrading your city. You start with an empty map and immediately place your patron god’s sprawling compound, which forms your city’s hub. Next, you lay down basic roads, housing, farms, markets, and all the other necessities of ancient life. In this regard, Theos: Cities of Myth abandons outdated mechanics and interfaces for building tools more aligned with modern games. There’s not a huge amount of narrative character, but the game alerts you that new tools, buildings, or units have become available. Your next objective is clearly stated.
Building a bustling city involves a lot of decisions and options. You can focus on trade, conquest, or defense. Meet the demands of the gods and new heroes or influential figures will arrive. Players of recent city builders, economic sims, and RTS games will recognize these mechanics, of course. Mixed with the retro art style, Theos: Cities of Myth feels like the best of two worlds.
Added Value
Theos: Cities of Myth has a few extras in addition to the campaign scenarios. You can focus on one-off, real-time, Total War-like battles, picking your units and heroes in advance and then seeing the skirmish play out while you control the combatants. It’s a great way to learn the capabilities of the various factions.
Although it wasn’t available in the demo preview, there’s a map editor. Creating custom environments is and always has been one of my favorite things to do in RTS games. Given the somewhat simplified nature of the graphics, there’s still a decent number of ways to customize the visuals.
As the developer Triskell Interactive did with Pharoah: A New Era, Theos: Cities of Myth brings together user-friendly tools and approaches to scenario design with retro-inspired art. Theos: Cities of Myth is a winning combination of nostalgia and contemporary gameplay, and I’m looking forward to trying out the full game.
***PC code provided by the publisher for preview***
