Age of Mythology: Retold review — A wonderful remake that lays the foundation for years of expansions

Lightning bolts rain down, electrocuting minotaurs and men alike. War elephants reduce a nearby fortress to rubble. A dragon swoops overhead, roasting several archers alive. Dwarves merrily mine gold.

That's just one of many skirmishes I've seen play out over the last week, as I've been playing through Age of Mythology: Retold. I grew up on strategy games like Age of Empires 2, and while Xbox Game Studios and World's Edge have worked to rebuild multiple games in the Age of Empires series with modern-day definitive editions, the oft-overlooked spinoff, Age of Mythology, is finally getting its due. 

Overall, it's a wonderful remake, with great new graphics, lighting, and physics alongside a few needed gameplay changes that improve the flow of matches as players wield godly strength and fierce creatures in a true clash of the titans. A few bugs and glitches did crop up during my time with the game so far, but they aren't enough to push me away playing even more. 

What is Age of Mythology: Retold?

Age of Mythology: Retold – Xbox Games Showcase 2024 - YouTube

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Age of Mythology: Retold is an extensive remake of Age of Mythology, itself a spinoff of Age of Empires that was originally developed by Ensemble Studios. Published by Xbox Game Studios, Age of Mythology: Retold is developed by World's Edge alongside an army of support teams from across Forgotten Empires, Tantalus Media, CaptureAge, and Virtuos.

Like its Age of Empires cousins, Age of Mythology is a real-time strategy game (RTS), tasking players with gathering resources, constructing fortresses, managing an economy, and building armies for conquest. 

Unlike Age of Empires, Age of Mythology leans into it namesake, eschewing factual history to reach into tales of myth and legend. Human spearmen, slingers, and catapults are accompanied by metal automatons, centaurs, and leviathans. Gods and goddesses lend their powers, letting players who have earned their favor hurl meteors and summon the undead in combat. In addition to three campaigns, there are multiplayer options, a skirmish mode taking on the AI, and a scenario editor that allows players to build their own campaign levels. 

Players choose from one of four Pantheons (more are on the way in future expansions), with the Atlanteans, Egyptians, Greeks, and Norse all available at launch. Each faction is divided into a handful of Major Gods like Odin and Zeus, and players have a choice of two Minor Gods each time their civilization advances, with deities like Artemis and Osiris granting new abilities, technology, and myth units.

Age of Mythology: Retold also introduces a number of changes, some minor and some fairly significant, all of which help translate the experience into one that fits on modern gaming PCs and Xbox Series X|S consoles. World's Edge is also implementing official mod support, which can permit users to introduce big changes or just silly levels to play through.

• Age of Mythology: Retold Standard Edition for Xbox/PC was $29.99  now $22.19 at CDKeys
• Age of Mythology: Retold Premium Edition for Xbox/PC was $49.99  now $36.29 at CDKeys

Age of Mythology: Retold review — Gameplay and features

Age of Mythology: Retold largely plays the same as the original game, but with a handful of major additions. As previously revealed, one of the big changes in this remake is the ability to reuse God Powers. On the face of it, this is a simple decision that makes a great degree of sense. Using a heavenly barrage to obliterate an enemy army goes from being too awesome to ever use to becoming an expensive but vital part of your arsenal. 

In practice, it's hard to overstate how much this alters the flow of the game. While each God Power requires increasing amounts of Favor for every time its reused, careful plotting can result in some downright devious new tactics. Even in just the campaigns, unleashing the Sons of Osiris (yes, plural) completely changes your strategy for tackling tougher levels like A Long Way from Home, as multiple lightning-wielding demigods tear through armies without breaking a sweat.

Another change that greatly benefits the game is the removal of a Favor cap. Broadly speaking this means more opportunities to expand and create bigger armies. One flaw in the original Age of Mythology experience was that the endgame often favored singular win-or-lose blob armies due to only being able to have so many myth units built at once, but I frequently found it beneficial to have two or even three armies in the field at once, something made far easier by being able to keep on storing Favor indefinitely. 

Age of Mythology: Retold also brings controller support to PC, a first for the franchise. These controls take full advantage of the villager priority system introduced with the Xbox version of Age of Empires 2, and it's a great way for newcomers to learn how strategy games play. I even found myself going back-and-forth between keyboard and controller as I was playing through the campaigns.

I'm sure exploits will inevitably be found and will need to be balanced through updates, but across the campaign levels and skirmishes I played, I was always having a blast, and it's some of the most fun I've ever had in Age of Empires as a franchise.

The only real gameplay issues I encountered came in the form of pathfinding. It was never too much to deal with, but I did notice from time to time that ranged units could have a hard time forming up correctly, even if nothing was really in their way. Meanwhile, melee units could get distracted and wander off if they weren't heavily micromanaged.

Age of Mythology: Retold review — Visuals and audio

Quite a bit of effort has clearly gone into rebuilding Age of Mythology, and the results are quite beautiful to behold. Character models for men and monsters alike have been rebuilt, and they hold up decently even heavily zoomed in. The environments are likewise gorgeous, with rippling waves and lush forests that hold serenity before battles unfold.

New visuals means heavier graphics requirements, but anyone with a halfway recent computer should be able to run Age of Mythology: Retold decently. Running on my RTX 3070, I was able to max out all of the graphics settings (including the ray-tracing options) without any issues maintaining a rock-solid framerate, while installing the game to an NVME SSD meant load times were never more than a few seconds long.

I did encounter one odd performance hiccup part of the way through the Fall of the Trident campaign. The sixteenth mission, Good Advice, saw the game briefly stutter every 20-25 seconds until the level was nearly over. It's the only time in the game I encountered this problem, and I wasn't able to recreate it, but it's worth mentioning here all the same. 

Age of Mythology: Retold also brings a new version of the classic soundtrack. It's quite good, with all the iconic tracks remastered without too many alterations. The game features crisp audio design overall, with clear direction and indications for what's happening on or off-screen. 

Age of Mythology: Retold review — Accessibility and approachability

Age of Mythology: Retold features a well thought-out suite of accessibility options. Players can customize faction colors along a gradient for each player, ensuring that almost anyone with any kind of colorblindness can find the right settings to play. There's also font size options for the text and menus, adjustable player text colors, a full menu narrator, and more to choose from. 

For newcomers, the aforementioned controller support does a great job lowering the barrier to entry, with an intuitive setup that makes micromanaging villagers and your economy less of a hassle. World's Edge developers previously told me they wanted Age of Mythology: Retold to be the most approachable game in the Age of Empires series, and that definitely holds up under hands-on examination. This is by far the easiest RTS for someone to jump into that I've seen in a long time.

Should you play Age of Mythology: Retold?

The few bugs I encountered set aside, Age of Mythology: Retold succeeds at not only being a wonderful remake but also moving the series forward, laying the foundation for years of expansions and updates. I'm looking forward to putting dozens and dozens of more hours into Age of Mythology: Retold, as well as eagerly awaiting the new Pantheons that'll be coming in the months ahead.

If you loved the original Age of Mythology, this is an absolute must-grab. For newcomers that are intrigued by the premise but concerned around the idea of trying a strategy game, I would still say to give it a try. Between the gameplay changes, controller support, and accessibility options, this realm of gods and monsters is a fantastic way to start out your strategy journey. 

Age of Mythology: Retold launches on Sept. 4, 2024 across Xbox Series X|S and Windows PC, as well as being available in Xbox Game Pass. Premium Edition owners can start playing early on August 27.