Age of Mythology: Retold review — Skipan? Já.

Age of Mythology: Retold is more than just an update to a nostalgic classic; it’s a reimagining of the heyday of RTS games when civilizations could rise and fall in an evening and LAN parties were a tangle of chords, pizza, and Mountain Dew. A graphics update likely would have been enough to sell this game, but the developers didn’t stop there. A mountain of quality-of-life improvements, modern graphics, new gameplay modes, and more to come make Age of Mythology: Retold feel instantly nostalgic and right at home with modern RTSs at the same time.

If you are new to the Age of Mythology franchise, it is a real time strategy game, or RTS, that built on the massive success of Age of Empires by introducing mythical units and a pantheon of gods with special powers and bonuses. Core gameplay sees each player building up their civilization from the same starting point of a Town Center and a handful of villagers. From there, it’s up to you how to expand, advance through the ages, and conquer your enemies. Players collect resources, construct buildings to recruit units, research new technologies, and wage war.

The mythical units and god powers are what makes Age of Mythology stand out from its older brother Age of Empires. The game launches with several pantheons to choose from. Each has three gods to choose (or four if you have the new DLC) from. The pantheon you choose will determine which god powers and units you have access to, but also drastically affects your play style for the game. Each pantheon specializes in different things and has unique units. The god you choose will further differentiate your stats and abilities with each lesser god that you choose as you move through the ages refining your play options even more and allowing you to respond to what your opponents are doing as the game progresses.

Age of Mythology has multiple game modes to choose from. The campaigns from the original game return, and are a great way to learn the key concepts in a controlled environment. New to Retold is Mythic Battles. There is only one available at the time of review. Still, the mode is clearly meant to be expanded upon by the developer and even the player base through the exhaustive map and scenario editor. The Mythic Battles are basically one-off campaign-style scenarios, and the one available now, Reginleif’s Rally, is a fun challenge. The most played mode though is going to be Skirmish. Skirmish mode is the bread and butter of RTS games where you choose your civilization, teams, map, difficulty, win conditions, and challenge yourself against the AI or other players.

Like in previous versions, Retold includes a robust editor that allows you to make your own maps or even entire campaigns and scenarios. Everything from map-making tools to action triggers and cinematics is included for those who really want to dig into making custom games. I don’t have the patience for this kind of thing but I love that it is included and there is a mechanism for sharing custom content.

So, if you own a previous version of Age of Mythology, do you need Retold? The updates are too numerous to go into detail on each one but I will break them down into a few categories. The graphics are obvious. Retold looks like a modern game and if you ever wondered what the original units were actually supposed to look like, here’s your chance. The graphics update is gorgeous and it’s easy to forget this game originally came out in 2002.

The next noticeable update is all of the quality of life changes. Things like much more obvious and labeled hotkeys, auto explore commands for scout units, increased control of unit behaviors and stances, and a much cleaner and clearer UI do a lot to make the game feel like a new release. If you’re a fan of these types of games and picked up Age of Empires 4 a few years ago, you’ll notice a lot of shared DNA. The menus, UI, and graphical style all lean on the excellent updates that AoE 4 made to the franchise. The final update type is to the game balance. Unit costs, damage, and armor values have all been evaluated and rebalanced. For experienced players, you’ll need to relearn all of your build orders and strategies with the new balance changes. At launch, Retold has a DLC for a new Norse god, Freyr. The previously released Chinese pantheon has been removed from the game but will return at a later date as well as an additional unannounced pantheon. Plus, if you are a true master of the game, there are now two additional difficulties beyond Titan. If you want to really be challenged, Extreme and Legendary difficulties are available but not for the faint of heart.

This latest edition of Age of Mythology is a masterclass in remakes. I felt right at home jumping into a skirmish and didn’t have to spend any time relearning the game. It feels like the Age of Mythology I knew and loved and doesn’t sacrifice anything in its updates. I mentioned the new UI earlier and it is now so much easier to locate and see important information while playing the game. It may seem minor but one extremely beneficial update is that things you can’t afford have dark buttons so it’s immediately obvious you cannot buy them. In the previous version of the game, every unit and upgrade button appeared the same regardless of whether you had the resources for it. You would just click the button and nothing would happen. Moving the resources to the top of the screen also makes keeping track of your economy feel more natural than looking down in the bottom corner like before.

There’s no way I could play through every combination of god and minor god for this review but I’ve played quite a bit and the balancing in Retold seems to be pretty good. I haven’t found any combination yet that feels broken. Like most RTS games, unit countering is important, especially if you want to play at higher difficulty levels or competent real people. Age of Mythology is heavy on economy management and unit countering. Most mythic units have a special attack but it defaults to auto cast so you don’t need to be an apm (actions per minute) keyboard wizard to have fun. The one playstyle that is hard to pull off in this game is a defensive or turtling strategy. You can build walls and towers but they are more of a speed bump than an actual defensive structure. Siege weapons are fairly limited as well with the focus being on mythic units and Titans if the game draws out for too long.

Age of Mythology: Retold doesn’t redefine the genre but returning fans will not be disappointed and new ones may discover why RTS games were king of the hill in the not-so-distant past. Retold is mechanically solid, beautifully remade, and a blast to play with friends.

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