I've had a blast with Age of Mythology: Retold's excellent new strategy expansion, the Chinese-themed Immortal Pillars

While my army has taken a beating, I've still got enough strong units to push through finish the mission. Selecting the Great Flood from my available God Powers, I quickly wash away most of the enemy army, battering their cavalry and wiping out their infantry, making what would've been a dangerous victory an easy win.

That's the exciting culmination of one campaign mission in Immortal Pillars, the new expansion for Age of Mythology: Retold.

I've had a great time playing through this expansion over the last few days, testing the new Chinese faction against the existing roster. I reviewed Age of Mythology: Retold when it first launched last year, and I'm happy to see that the post-launch support I hoped for is panning out.

If you're someone that enjoys strategy games but hasn't checked this out yet (or you've been looking a reason to hop back in) then Immortal Pillars is the perfect reason to dive into Age of Mythology.

Why You Should Trust Me

Why You Should Trust Me

Samuel Tolbert

I've been playing strategy games since Age of Empires 2 on a Windows 98 PC. It's a genre that I love, and I'm happy classic franchises like Age of Mythology are still getting attention in recent years.

What is Age of Mythology: Retold Immortal Pillars?

• Immortal Pillars is the first paid expansion for Age of Mythology: Retold.
• Immortal Pillars adds the Chinese pantheon, with three new Major Gods.
• A new campaign focused on the Chinese is also included.

Immortal Pillars is the first of two promised expansions for Age of Mythology: Retold, a remake of the original Age of Mythology.

Developed by World's Edge and supporting teams while published by Xbox Game Studios, Immortal Pillars adds a completely rebuilt Chinese pantheon to the game, with an accompanying campaign.

Like the Greeks, Egyptians, and Atlanteans, the Chinese have three Major Gods — the Norse currently have four, thanks to a launch DLC pack adding Freyr — with a plethora of new Minor Gods, mythological units, and God Powers.

I say "rebuilt" because the original Age of Mythology did get a Chinese-focused expansion called Tale of the Dragon, but this DLC was universally-reviled due to a plethora of bugs and poor balancing.

As a result, Immortal Pillars can be seen as a redo of sorts, with the developers focused on getting it right by building everything anew from the ground up instead of trying to salvage an extremely disliked content pack.

Immortal Pillars is available for $20 USD, but it's also just included in the Premium Edition (or Premium Upgrade, for Xbox Game Pass players) of the game.

Age of Mythology: Retold Immortal Pillars

Immortal Pillars is here, bringing a rebuilt Chinese faction to the fray in Age of Mythology. Sweep enemies away with a flood and unleash creatures like the Qilin upon your foes.

👉See at: GreenManGaming (Steam) | Xbox

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Age of Mythology: Retold Immortal Pillars review — What I liked

• The story presentation in the campaign is well done.
• The new Chinese units and God Powers are extremely fun to use.

As mentioned above, Immortal Pillars is all about the Chinese, adding three new Major Gods — Fuxi, Nüwa, and Shennong — and nine Minor Gods that lend their strength.

No matter your chosen deity, the Chinese have a unified playstyle, gaining favor by expanding their Favored Land. That means you're encouraged to build out your structures in a particular expanding, expanding in certain ways to maximize the benefits of having more land covered.

It's a really fun addition that made me think differently from my usual playstyle. The Chinese army roster is similar interesting, with Qilins that can heal friendly units, while the oddly-adorable Hundun is devastating to your enemies' human troops.

The tortoise-snake Xuanwu is my favorite new mythological creature, as it can switch between swimming or lumbering across land, making it dangerously versatile.

The Chinese also have access to fun hero scout, the Pioneer, which can send sky lanterns across swathes of the map to scout without actually moving themselves.

There's also cool variety in the God Powers, and the aforementioned Great Flood is particularly visually impressive, knocking away dozens of enemies and crushing them at once.

All of this is important to grasp when playing through the campaign, which unfolds over the course of nine missions. The story is fun, following the attempt of a group of heroes to stop the immortal Huang Zhaowu from conquering all of China and destabilizing reality.

It's well-acted and presented, with frequent cutscenes instead of relying on voiceovers during a particular mission.

While the scenarios don't get too wild, a few have some challenging setups, such as racing against the clock to navigate to transport an army over water, or requiring you to defend the construction of a time-consuming Wonder.

Even if many players will be focused on using the Chinese faction in multiplayer, the story is worth playing through once, and I'm looking forward to going through again on a higher difficulty later.

Age of Mythology: Retold Immortal Pillars review — What I disliked

• While the campaign is a good experience, it's a bit short.
• I also ran into a few navigation and pathfinding bugs with a some of the new units.

Immortal Pillars is a mostly polished experience, but I did run into a couple of pathfinding issues with the new units. One in particular, the Yazi, quickly dashes and charges opponents.

That's fun and useful, but more than once, I found the creature became stuck on a tree in a mission where I didn't have access to villagers. A similar issue happened with Qinlong, a flying dragon that shouldn't be getting stuck on anything.

I also found the campaign to be a bit short. While it is nine missions, the first handful are essentially acting as a tutorial, teaching the player how to effectively play with the Chinese, meaning only the latter scenarios felt like seriously challenging missions.

Age of Mythology: Retold Immortal Pillars review — Final thoughts

You should buy this if ...

✅You're already enjoying Age of Mythology: Retold, and you want more.

If you've been playing Age of Mythology: Retold and you enjoyed what the base game had to offer, then grabbing Immortal Pillars is a great idea. The Chinese factions shake up the existing balance of power in a radical way, and the campaign has some fun scenarios worth playing through.

✅You love Chinese mythology and strategy games.

If you haven't played Age of Mythology: Retold yet, but this expansion has caught your eye, I wholeheartedly recommend jumping in. The new Chinese civilization has been brought to life with care, with plenty of new gameplay mechanics that are still newcomer-friendly. Just remember that you'll need to buy the base game (or subscribe to Xbox Game Pass) before getting Immortal Pillars.

You should not buy this if ...

❌You haven't enjoyed real-time strategy games before.

If you aren't a fan of real-time strategy games, then this isn't going to change your mind. Immortal Empires is an excellent addition to already-awesome remake, but while there are fun new things to play around with, it's not going to change the mind of someone that has previously bounced off of similar games.

While Age of Mythology: Retold was already an excellent experience, playing Immortal Pillars makes it abundantly clear that this remake wasn't a one-off, and the teams at World's Edge and its myriad partner studios understand how to keep growing this game in exciting ways.

I've had a blast playing around with the Chinese Major Gods, with the new God Powers and mythological units complimenting the existing pantheons.

I wish the campaign was a bit longer, and there are a handful of bugs to polish, but ultimately, what's here is very good and absolutely worth buying if you've already enjoyed the base game.

Immortal Pillars is a worthy addition to Age of Mythology: Retold, and I'm looking forward to spending even more time with the Chinese faction in the coming weeks.

With the development team providing it could handle reworking a faction essentially from scratch, I'm now extraordinarily curious to see what pantheon will be added into Age of Mythology next. We'll probably be waiting for a while to get any details on the second expansion, but I'll be ready.

Age of Mythology: Retold and Immortal Pillars are currently available on Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC, and PlayStation 5.

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