In the last few years, the genre that has been getting love that seems to be often overlooked is the real-time strategy. The peak of this genre existed in the late 1990s and early 2000s. While some carried the torch over the years, bigger legacy titles started to receive attention includingAge of Empire IV, Company of Heroes 3and theCommand & Conquer Remastered Collection.XBOX Game Studios has added another big RTS series to the modern revamp of the genre withAge of Mythology: Retold.Rather than building a new game from the ground up, various developers who worked on this update focused on bringing this series in line with 2024 standards.
What is Age of Mythology?
Microsoft’s main real-time strategy franchise in the 1990s was Age of Empires, which took various cultures and instituted special units pertaining to that culture with an integration of civilization building that resembled each culture. The goal was to gather various resources, advance to different ages of society, further unlocking better units and technology and going to battle. Resource management was key as expanding a village into an empire was key, but the combat was the main focus for separating itself from the likes of the Civilization franchise.
The original Age of Mythology launched in 2002, which many could argue felt like a mod or an expansion to the Age of Empires series. The fact that so much was different with units and focusing on mythology rather than cultural empires warranted something completely new. On top of this, Age of Mythology was Microsoft’s switch over to 3D as Age of Empires was sprite-based. At the time of release, seeing various mythological monsters in tiny 3D polygonal art was cool, but it did not age well. The core gameplay design remained the same as Age of Empires, but Mythology just swapped the plot focus that involved more over-the-top lore that made every Pantheon faction uniquely different.
What Does Age of Mythology: Retold Offer?
Firstly,Age of Mythology: Retoldis available on both PC and consoles on Day One, whereasAge of Empires IVhad to wait for the console release. This means a controller setup is available for both versions as well. It is included on Game Pass.Retoldoffers modern 4K visuals and redone art to make this a much better-looking appearance for the franchise. The game includes four Pantheons to choose from with different Gods under each. The Pantheons include Greek, Egyptian, Norse and Atlantean, and the diversity is much more in terms of not only elite units but how each Pantheon civilization runs their village. There was a bit of this withAge of Empires IV, but the differences make each God under the different Pantheons worth playing with for a different experience.
There are three campaigns for the various Pantheons that offer fifty different mission scenarios.There’s a story for each, but not that deep in terms of story. There are in-game cutscenes to help tell the stories and this is the best way to learn how each Pantheon and God works. The biggest separation withRetoldandAge of Empires IVis the generation of Favor. Favor unlocks God Powers and include the likes of lightning storms, earthquakes, healing and much more. These unlock with each Age increase as do the Mythological Units. The units are so fun to use and offer a variety of perks. In the past, typically some units from specific factions were useless, but withRetold,each Mythological Unit offers something great, such as a Sandman that multiplies when defeated or the updated Frost and Fire Trolls.
New Fans to the Series
For those that are new to these recent releases from XBOX Game Studios, the base way to playRetoldremains the same asAge of Empires IV.Retoldoffers much improved visuals over its predecessor versions, but it lacks the polish thatAge of Empires IVoffered.The goal was to modernize the series and while there are some things here that feel updated, there are plenty of aspects that still feel like a game from 2002. Moving the cursor to each end of the screen to move around the world is fine, but it’s the only way moving is activated. The transitions aren’t smooth and the scrolling is slow. The AI is also oblivious in a lot of situations, albeit there have been instances in playing the game where villagers will help other villagers take down a bear that’s attacking one villager. The awareness is still an issue, and the overall experience still feels like rushing to get to the final Age and having the most elite units to eliminate the opposition.
There’s a bit of exploration in terms of building the Pantheon up, and generating Favor remains the main difference. Once the Favor is coming in steadily, the match can be quickly wrapped up. There are naval battles, as well, so it comes down to what the user wants to do. The opposing AI, at least in skirmishes, is manageable at the default difficulty level and players can choose if they’re aggressive or defense before the match. Multiplayer and Skirmishes are available with PVE for Skirmishes and Multiplayer along with Ranked Play. Unfortunately, this wasn’t available before the release to test.
Review: Age of Empires IV
While there are technical issues, Age of Empires IV truly feels like a successful modern take on a classic favorite.
There are 40 PVE/PVP maps and the devs included a Map Editor and the ability to include Mods from directly in the game. The Map Editor feels dated and doesn’t offer any direction in how to use it. Back to the gameplay aspect, predefined presets are available for villagers to help manage resource gathering. A lot of tasks for certain units can be automatically queued and won’t require micromanaging to launch special powers or abilities. One annoying aspect is when building a new Town Centers, villagers will start automatically cranking out and this fills up the population inhibiting the ability to build more military units. This appears that it can be turned off. Of course, the option to select a bunch of villagers and hit delete on the keyboard can solve this issue as well.
Modern Visuals and Audio
The best part of the visuals are the upgraded elite unit art that’s being utilized here. It’s cool seeing a wide variety of ridiculous mythological creatures and their effects.The overall look of the game is a step down fromAge of Empires IV, but makes the original versions of this series obsolete.The world is colorful with a lot of effects going on. It can be zoomed in on, which allows to view new 3D grass and a lot of these units up close. Microsoft provided a copy of Age of Mythology: Retold for review on PC to test, and with a NVIDIA RTX 3080 10GB set at 4K and the highest visual settings, the experienced hovered around 90 FPS, which is plenty. The game does include a benchmark tool and a custom frame rate limit up to 144 FPS.
The devs added a handful of graphical options including structure weathering effects, dynamic lights, height gradient and screen space reflections. Bloom is also an option, as is Temporal AA, FXAA and FSR 2.0. There are no options for NVIDIA tools and ray tracing is not included. Don’t expect any day-to-night transitions or anything dynamic related to graphics. It’s mainly the art of everything getting upgraded within gameplay and not to the level ofAge of Empires IV. It doesn’t seem like the audio received any upgrades, which is perfectly fine. The music is fantastic and tends to start off with a theme of that Pantheon that eventually transitions over to the synth-heavy style of these legacy PC titles. Voice acting isn’t great, but the sound effects of the units and the quality are exceptional. Voice chat is included for multiplayer games.
Closing Comments:
Age of Mythology: Retoldeliminates the need to play the original titles as it takes everything from both of those games, modernizes it and brings the experience to 2024. While it lacks the polish ofAge of Empires IV, the game remains extremely fun thanks to the mythological units and God Powers that can be recharged and used multiple times. This aspect adds more depth that may have not been there for some players forAOE4. The gameplay aspect does still feel like a RTS from 2002, but the campaign, skirmish and the option of PVE multiplayer will supply a ton of hours to dive intoRetold.
Age of Mythology: Retold
Version Reviewed: PC
Age of Mythology: Retold offers a modern update to the classic mythological real-time strategy game. This is the first time in the series the game launches on both PC and console.
