Age of Mythology Retold reminded me how much I like RTS games

As the Age of Empires games kept getting remastered over the last few years, I quietly crossed my fingers, hoping that Age of Mythology would get the same treatment.

Age of Mythology was released regionally in 2002, and alongside Roller Coaster Tycoon, The Sims and Stronghold Crusader, it’s one of the core PC games my friends and I played growing up. I still remember phoning my friend’s house and having his mom help me bypass the DRM on his copy of Age Of Mythology I borrowed so I could install it on my grandma’s computer.

All of that is to say, I’ve been excited about this game, but I haven’t played it in years, so coming back to it has been a little bit like opening a box of nostalgia.

Back to the battlefield

The game’s core has been kept the same in the modern remaster, but the team behind the title has tweaked a few things to make it feel a little more modern.

The first is the visuals. While they might not be jaw-dropping or extremely detailed like Baldurs Gate 3, the higher resolution on display with the remaster makes it much easier on the eyes than the originals. In a weird way, the new version looks the same way I remember the old version looking, but when I went back and actually looked at the original, it burned my retinas with its grainy images and low-resolution effects.

Beyond that, there are a few gameplay tweaks. Both are extremely helpful and make the game a little more forgiving to play. The first is a new military movement mechanic that allows your units to be a bit more aggressive on scouting missions. Previously, scouts often ran past buildings or enemy troops and got mowed down without putting up a fight. Now, if any enemy attacks them on a journey, they might fight back and win. It also allows you to move an army more aggressively without having to click attack on a single enemy unit or building.

Another feature I’ve been using is a new one-click method for balancing your workers. With this new system, you can automatically set how your workers disperse amongst food, gold and wood gathering. In the early game, I generally place my workers where I need them, as you would in the original version, but once I start to progress into the later ages and need to focus on my military, it’s nice to be able to split the workers so they evenly gather all resources without having to reassign each person manually.

The other two changes I use a little less since they’re more nice-to-have features as opposed to new gameplay tweaks. The first is the multi-use God Powers, and the second is an expanded population cap.

The larger population cap is nice, it’s not a huge change, and I still felt rather limited playing offline and not being able to have huge armies. There are mods to boost this, but I wish there were some kind of control built into the game, allowing players to go wild if they want to. The multi-use God Powers are cool, too, and can come in handy in a pinch. However, they get more costly each time you unleash one, which feels like a fair way to use them. In the end, I rarely found myself using more than one. I think these will be used more online, but offline and in the campaign, they haven’t felt extremely revolutionary yet.

Speaking of Gods, the Norse god Freyer is included in the game, but you need to have either the expansion pass or the premium version to access him. This is the first all-new god to be added to the title in years, and his focus is more on defence and technology, making him great for players who love to build up a large kingdom. That said, making this single God a part of the paid upgrade feels weird.

That said, the game is releasing at $35 CAD, with the Premium version hitting $55, which does take the sting out of things a bit since getting everything is still less than most brand-new games. The premium version also gives access to both upcoming DLC packs. The first brings back Chinese gods, but it seems like the company is changing and improving them since the original Chinese DLC was generally looked down on as a poor add-on to the 2002 game. The second DLC is still under wraps.

Any flaws?

There is only one glaring flaw I have with the new version of the game, and that is that the new Tutorial is incredibly basic. It teaches you the bare minimum of navigating the game without diving into any of the nuances or strategy.

If you play the campaign, it does force you to do some stuff that’s not covered in the tutorial, but it still doesn’t go over things like how to rotate buildings, how the military rock/paper/scissors mechanic works, and more tips that new players will definitely need, and returning players like myself who haven’t played in 16 years would benefit from.

Since most digital games do not include a manual, having an actual five-stage mini-campaign to teach players all the random skills and show off some of the various unit types would probably be extremely helpful.

Should you get this game?

If you’re an Age of Empires fan or are really into ancient mythology, this game is for you. If you played Age of Mythology back in the day, the new version is a really potent dose of nostalgia which is hard to pass out for RTS nerds who grew up in the 2000s.

If you’ve never played a game like this before, I’d recommend playing it on Game Pass first to see if you like it. If you are playing on Xbox, the controller inputs aren’t bad, but they do act quite differently than using a mouse and keyboard since you need to use a lot of radial menus instead of the traditional box menus that appear along the bottom of the screen on PC.

That said, you can use mouse/keyboard controls on Xbox consoles, but you need to have them plugged in with a wire or a Logitech adapter. Bluetooth mice and keyboards won’t connect sadly.

In the end, I’m really happy that Age of Mythology has been retold, and I’m excited to see where the company takes the franchise going forward.

Age of Mythology: Retold is out now for anyone who’s bought the Premium edition on Steam or Xbox and will launch on September 4 for anyone on GamePass or with the standard version of the game.