Age of Mythology: Retold Review: A Faithful Remaster for the Modern Era

Reimagined from the ground up, Age of Mythology: Retold brings the 2002 classic RTS swinging into the modern day. This isn’t a definitive edition to rekindle lost love from an ageing audience. This is a fresh experience for a new generation, and a dream come true for the old blood. The original was more accessible than its Age of Empires siblings given its tone, quality of life additions and penchant for chaos, and that’s truer still with the remake. Whether you’re looking to relive the glory days of early 2000s strategy gaming or you’re a newcomer who likes the idea of levelling cities with a dragon, there’s a lot here to like. 

What’s Returning, What’s New?

Fans of the original game should know what to expect in this package. Front and centre is the main campaign, featuring everyone’s favourite Atlantean, Arkantos. Additionally, there are two smaller campaigns: The Golden Gift, which was released after the original game, and The New Atlantis, from The Titans expansion. Outside of that there is the skirmish mode, featuring over 40 maps across three game types, as well as competitive or cooperative online play. 

Gameplay sees you take control of one of four pantheons: the Greeks, Egyptians, Norse or Atlanteans. After picking a major god, you’ll dedicate yourself to minor deities as you progress through the ages. These will bestow unique powers, units and technologies to crush your opponents with. It’s also got built in mod support which is a great sign, but as to the extent of what’s possible? Well I’ve no idea about that. Modders are wizards to me, and I’m excited to see what they conjure up. 

So a great big game that’s all about great big monsters waging great big battles. But that was the same in the 2002 version, so what makes Retold worth it?

Well the obvious thing is the visuals. Everything’s been redone, and it looks incredible. The monsters and units are fantastic, and everything gets a new look whenever you upgrade it. Not a deal breaker, but a nice touch. And of course, each God, Goddess and Titan has received a complete makeover, and these all look great. Apart from Kronos. 

Alongside this there’s new animations, visual effects, new building destruction effects and even ray tracing. Just in case you wanted ray tracing in your strategy games. I’m sure someone’s asked for that at least once? 

There are a few new additions in there too. A handful of units and technologies, god powers now have multiple uses, and there’s now a fifth age, The Wonder Age, which gives a discount to god powers allowing for some frequent divine intervention to liven up a late-game stalemate. They’ve also introduced a new villager automation system, which should make the game more inviting to newer players and easier to play on consoles. Handy, given this is launching on Xbox at the same time as PC. Just to point out, this review was done on the PC version sent over by Microsoft.

Fall of the Trident

The first big thing to touch on is the campaign. It’s a favourite of RTS fans everywhere, and for good reason. The epic of Arkantos sees him meddling in iconic points of history with a crack squad of legendary heroes. 

You’ll travel across the world, play as each of the original games' pantheons, and attempt to save the world from certain doom. Which you’ll obviously manage — you’re the hero after all. 

Not to point out the obvious, but it is a 20 year old campaign. And as much heat as I may get for this, it does feel dated at times. Especially when you compare it to the likes of AOE 4. There’s a lot there, and some scenarios are certainly weaker than others, boiling down to another round of ‘gather, build, siege, repeat’. 

In between these, things go off the beaten path and you’re offered up a scenario that feels really compelling. This is where the gameplay shines. And with those particularly interesting missions, you can go back and try your hand at harder difficulties, which will introduce new mechanics and threats. These will definitely put you through your paces. The individual scenarios do encourage exploration and experimentation. Dotted around maps you’ll find relics to empower your heroes, as well as alternate approaches to objectives. 

Tying everything together is the story, and it's told through a brand new voice cast. Some I was onboard with, but a few characters felt like a swing and a miss. Other times, the new voice worked but there was a line here and there that felt misplaced, diffusing the tension. This is heightened by some janky animations and wooden actors in the cutscenes. Wasn’t really an issue 20 years ago, but now we’re seeing it in full 4K glory, these aspects are very obvious. 

That aside, the campaign as a whole is good. Its characters are lively, the maps and scenarios are mostly interesting, and the overarching story has weight to it. There’s a peppering of humour here and there which is a nice diversion from the constant world ending doom. Furthermore, it's a great way to come to terms with the game as you’ll play as every pantheon at some point, and it’ll help give you a taste of all the god powers and units to take forward into Skirmish mode.

A Battle for Every Occasion

I may have felt the campaign to be a bit rusty, but the skirmish mode? That’s a whole different story. It felt modern, engaging, and a whole ton of fun. For those unfamiliar with the game, you pick a pantheon, choose a major god, tweak the game settings to your liking, and go to war. 

But where a skirmish in Age of Empires or other RTS’ may feel like an intricate and well choreographed line dance, Age of Mythology is a mosh pit. Violent, chaotic, unpredictable. And I’m all about it. There’s something innately satisfying about seeing titanic units churning through an enemy army, flinging them across the battlefield. The new improvements and engine can really be felt: Everything feels tight, the animations and building destruction effects are great, and every unit looks and feels distinct and interesting. Maps are diverse and compelling, with some requiring you to play outside of your comfort zone. 

Despite there only being four pantheons, they play out entirely differently. You’ll naturally gravitate to one or another to match your playstyle strengths. Whether you want to play aggressively, turtle up, build a strong economy, or flood the battlefield with mythical troops, there’s great picks for any style. Furthermore, within each pantheon, major gods excel in different ways, and there’s a satisfaction in exploring new strategies with each of them. When a match is underway, you can swing the scales in your favour by smart picks of minor deities. Despite there being so much flashiness and divine showmanship, there is an awful lot of strategy involved. It’s fun to try, improve and master. 

The change to make god powers multiuse is the icing on the cake. It means you're throwing out powers and flexing your godly might, rather than holding onto them for the perfect moment, or regretting said usage when a better time comes. There’s something interesting about Age of Mythology. Even on a loss, it doesn’t feel deflating. You’re bearing witness to heroes and monsters smashing each other up, so when you get flattened, you’re not even that mad. ‘Cos it was cool as hell to watch. 

Larger Than Life

And that’s the big appeal of Age of Mythology. The reward isn’t mastering your gameplan, memorising a build order, or optimising your economy down to the last sheep. Sometimes you do things just for the sake of ‘wouldn’t that be fun’. Obviously, there’s a high skill ceiling that I’m many leagues from, and a ton of mastery involved, but that fulfilment and enjoyment doesn’t come after spending hundreds of hours in the game. You can jump straight in, and have a ton of fun straight off the bat. 

It’s obviously close to heart for many RTS players, but this is something I can see with a refreshed appeal. The game has always been a bit of an outlier. It’s enticing to a non RTS crowd, and I think that’s a great thing. Even in the game’s original design, there were these features that just made it easier to play. The ability to auto-queue and auto-explore for instance. Features that bring up a heated discussion when talked about in more competitive titles, but they feel right at home here. 

In Retold, they’ve gone further and added villager automation, taking yet another micromanagement task off the player. Now, if you’re familiar with RTS games you’ll still probably want to do it manually, but this just allows players who aren’t as battle tested to get stuck in and into the good stuff: The monsters, the god powers, and the destruction. 

While I preferred the skirmish mode over going through the campaign, that’s not to say the story doesn’t have its strengths. It’s a saga steeped in history and heroes. The characters aren’t bound to their actions in the story books, because they’re just that: stories. The whole thing is a myth. It’s over the top, larger than life, and unbelievable and ridiculous at times — just as a myth should be.

While the other definitive editions definitely feel like they’re made for players of old, I didn’t get this here. Yes, as someone who played and enjoyed the game many years ago, I had a nice jaunt down memory lane. But the new engine, the upgraded graphics, quality of life improvements, and the setting and game design — I don’t think this is just a nostalgia trip, but a fully fledged and modern game that can promise the same heights as the original.

The Problems

So that’s a whole lot of good, and I’m almost ready to give a verdict and a score, but first there’s a few problems I need to talk about. I’ve already mentioned some of these here and there. Some of the recast actors in the campaign aren’t as good as the originals. Some line deliveries lack weight — that’s just for cinematics mind you. Unit and monster voice lines are excellent. 

Here and there I noticed effects that were either missing, or weren’t visually clear if they were the real thing or a placeholder. Now this isn’t something I’d sweat over as it should be an easy fix. But they do take you out of the swing of things, even just briefly. 

My biggest issue however was with one of the new features: villager automation. I was actually thrilled at the sound of this as it seems a tool that will be a godsend to some. It’s just… it doesn’t work that well. 

Villagers will stand idle for a while before springing into action into their designated role, but then they tend to do something daft. They don’t fill out the ratio as you’d expect. They travel far away to hunt animals when there’s berry bushes right there. This is especially bad for the Norse, as the system doesn’t differentiate between dwarves and gatherers, so all your dwarves are out there cutting trees, rather than hitting the mines. 

This to me is a massive shame ‘cos it’s a great idea in principle,  it’s just the execution is lacking. To be fair, the people who get annoyed at villagers doing the wrong things and wasting excess time walking, those aren’t really the people the automation is being marketed at. People dug deep into the franchise will almost certainly want to manage their workers manually, but it would just be nice to have this fancy new system work as intended. Sometimes I feel a bit lazy. I wouldn’t mind an autopilot. 

While the game is very faithful to its original counterpart, I do think they could have introduced some more new features. They’ve done great things in other mainline titles and definitive editions in regards to interesting game modes and skirmish victory conditions. Now we know those sorts of things are planned with expansions and new game modes. Maybe I’m just impatient, but a novel game mode or unique scenario preset would really be enticing, and give an indicator of what is to come. 

Retold & Rejuvenated 

So, the good: It is faithful to the original game, and I’m sure fans will love stepping back into this world once more. It ticks the nostalgia box whilst also feeling modern. It’s exciting, unpredictable, and oftentimes just plain ludicrous. It will appeal to the old crowd, and hopefully bring a brand new audience into the fold. It’s got heaps of quality of life features built in. It’s smooth, easy to play, and the experience and hotkey commands are fully customisable. 

While I was a bit drained going through the campaign, the skirmish mode had me hopping into game after game, always eager to try something new, or play out some crazy hair-brained scheme. Every match felt different, interesting and, most importantly, fun. Even when I lost. I had some issues with the cutscenes, the voice acting, the worker automation, but these never became more than minor annoyances. They didn’t detract from the fact that I was thoroughly enjoying the game, and I wanted to keep playing.

And all of that is without the multiplayer in mind. I can tell you now, I cannot wait to rope in some friends, and go to town. I was having a blast playing against the AI, but bringing others along for the ride will take this to another level.