Age of Mythology Retold Review – Glory Favors the Bold

The 1990s and early 2000s were some of the best days for Real-Time Strategy games. It was during this time that the original Age of Empires graced the PC platform. The Age series always had a special place in my gaming history. Never in my wildest dreams did I think I could play a deep and utterly satisfying RTS with real-life historical civilizations. 

When Age of Mythology launched in 2002, I admit I was initially skeptical. How could the Age franchise include gods and mythological figures within the same gameplay loop? I felt it was lame and I brushed it off for a while. However, when I tried, I was quickly enamored. Especially by the god powers and mythical heroes while remaining within the addictive gameplay loop of the Age franchise. Now, in 2024, after the resurgence of the Age franchise once again, it’s now Age of Mythology’s turn to get its remake limelight. Undoubtedly, the gods have favored Age of Mythology Retold.

Developer & Publisher // World’s Edge, Forgotten Empires, Tantalus Media, Virtuos Games, CaptureAge & Xbox Game Studios

Platforms // PC, Xbox Series X|S, Game Pass

MSRP & Release Date // $29.99, August 28th, 2024 (Early Access), September 4th, 2024

Reviewed On // PC

Balance Between the Pantheons

One of the trickiest aspects of any RTS game is getting the balance just right between the different factions. They have to be distinctive enough to be differentiated, all the while remaining balanced. Now, in Age of Mythology Retold, there are four distinct pantheons: the Greeks, the Egyptians, the Norse, and the Atlanteans. The latter of which was provided via the expansion Age of Mythology: The Titans back in 2003. 

Each pantheon is quite idiosyncratic in its units, abilities, economic costs, god powers, and how favor is generated. For example, when it comes to generating favor (which is used for god powers and training mythical units) the Greeks rely on villagers to be full-time worshippers at temples in the same way they are tasked with resource gathering. In contrast, the Egyptians must build monuments that passively generate favor. While the Norse pantheon generates favor by killing enemies and hunting animals for food. 

Military Units

Now, when it comes to military units, this is where balance can get quite tricky. Balance is key in terms of unit power/defense, price of training, and upgrade path. For the most part, Age of Mythology Retold does a great job of balancing these aspects between the pantheons. 

For example, Greek units are stronger in general and cavalry units are available early. However, they are more expensive to produce. The Greek pantheon can also produce a limited number of heroes, but they are all quite strong. In contrast, each Atlantean unit can be upgraded into a hero, but they are also quite expensive. The Egyptian pantheon doesn’t get calvary units until the third age, but their units are quite inexpensive. 

Pharaonic priests act as scouts and can heal adjacent units, while the Greeks have air-centric scouts in the Pegasus. It’s these trade-offs that make each pantheon distinctive without an outright winner in all aspects of military units. My personal favorite was the Egyptian pantheon, because of how they passively generated favor and were relatively cheap to produce units during the early game stages. They felt very Zergy, for those who played Starcraft.  

God Powers

One of the key distinguishing features of Age of Mythology from its Empires cousins are god powers. They are quite diverse and can provide AOE attacks to resource generation buffs for your faction. There are five ages that players must advance to unlock new units, technologies, and godpowers. The ages are the Archaic Age, the Classical Age, the Heroic Age, the Mythical Age, and the New Age of Wonder. After upgrading to the next age, you have to select between two gods to get their specific powers and heroes. This adds a lot of strategic depth to finding what suits your particular play style. Finally, there’s also the newly added Wonder Age that makes building and god powers cheaper to help wrap up late-game stalemates.

I am all about the theatrics, so my personal favorite was the Curse god power. This power turns all the enemy units within a circle into pigs, which is quite hilarious. The Curse god power is bestowed by the Greek goddess, Aphrodite. Unlike, the 2002 original, god powers are reusable in Retold thanks to the favor resource, but more on that in the quality of life section below. 

A Missing Dragon

Strangely enough, the Chinese pantheon from the 2016 expansion Tale of the Dragon is strangely omitted from the game. No doubt Tale of the Dragon was initially a barometer to gauge interest in AoM, and its success likely led to Retold. However, don’t be surprised if the Chinese pantheon becomes part of a future paid expansion down the road. But its omission is quite baffling.

Tons of Content to Keep You Busy in Agy of Mythology Retold

To say that Age of Mythology Retold is rich in content would be a drastic understatement. The is chock-full of things to do, create, mod, and then some. The game has three campaigns that span 50 missions. Each campaign is based on the pantheon’s authentic mythology and legends. For example, the first Fall of the Trident campaign will take players across different ancient Greek myths and legends, including the Trojan War, minotaurs, and Atlantis. In between each story mission are in-engine cutscenes that do a great job of conveying the legendary tales.  

Skirmish mode is also available for some old-school PVE action with 40 different maps. Players can also create their own maps through the game’s editor and the game has dedicated mod support/store built into the game on PC. 

Cross-platform multiplayer is also available from 1 vs 1 up to 3 vs 3 options. However, during the review period, it was not available to reviewers, unfortunately. Though there are even ranked multiplayer if you want to get extra competitive in Age of Mythology Retold. 

There’s even an extensive compendium of information that details all the histories, legends, and myths of the different pantheons. Though is a staple found in the other titles from the Age franchise, it’s great to see tradition live on in Retold. Suffice it to say there’s plenty of content to keep players busy for quite some time. 

Meaning Quality-of-Life Improvements in Age of Mythology Retold

Age of Mythology Retold is a testament to the quality of life improvements that improve overall experience. From audio cues of new units, to idle villagers, everything is just streamlined to make playing the game much easier. 

There are now villager presets that players can select to help prioritize resources. For example, the defensive preset will prioritize wood collection, while the military preset will prioritize food resources. To add, you can even customize your own preset. However, I do wish there was more guidance on favor generation. Especially when playing as the Greeks, I would often time have to recommit villagers to worship at the temples after selecting new villager presets.  

There are a bunch of audio and visual cues that will help you understand what’s happening on the map. This includes alarm bells for combat and chimes for newly constructed buildings and units. Hovering over your mouse on different units and buildings gives a clear and concise description. 

Playing on keyboard and mouse, the Q, W, and E keys are all assigned to the first choices of buildings. In other words, these keys are assigned to all the military units that a barracks can train. Any second-layer functions are assigned to the A, S, and D keys. It’s all intuitive and helps queue up training units or upgrades in a jiffy. 

Traditionally, I have always played RTS games with a mouse, but wanted to experiment with the controller. Menu navigation was smooth and simple. Then when I got into the game, I felt a little disoriented at first, but then surprisingly I quickly adjusted. To select multiple units, you simply hold down the A button. Training units are mapped to face buttons, while the villager priority menu is accessible via holding a trigger and pressing a face button. I was actually surprised at how intuitive it all felt.

Accessibility

The developers provide a plethora of accessibility features that go beyond checking all the typical marks. From narration, adjustable text size, five difficulty settings (including a story mode), friend and foe colors and outlines, mini-map contrast, and much more. It’s clear that the game takes accessibility very seriously and it’s refreshing to see so many options that could help more gamers enjoy the game. 

Graphics of Age of Mythology Retold

When it comes to the graphics of Age of Mythology Retold, they look fantastic. Similarly to the other recently released Age remakes, AoMR keeps its staple look with a much-needed graphical facelift. The units are detailed, especially the heroes and various creatures of the world. For example, zooming in on the Hydra reveals all sorts of impressive texture details. Naval vessels also look fantastic and are well-detailed. Moreover, mechanical giants of the Greek pantheon would fall apart piece by piece when defeated, which is a brilliant example of attention to detail. While humanoid units still retain high quality. 

Heroes in particular will have unique designs and all have golden aura to highlight their uniqueness. Ajax from the Greek pantheon dons a skinned lion on his head and just oozes with heroic bravado. 

Unlike the original versions from the early naughts, buildings actually look to scale with people, which is always appreciated. In addition, units weren’t the only ones that received graphical love as well.

The effects are particularly impressive in Age of Mythology Retold. Especially the god powers that have a visceral and unique presentation to them. The meteor strike god power resonates beautifully, while the pestilence god power is dynamic whereas water effects look incredible. Especially the dynamics of the waves as they look so realistic and wouldn’t look out of place in a game like Sea of Thieves. Moreover, the environments look phenomenal as well. Well crafted and rich with details. Especially the vegetation, which looks lush.

Performance

Playing on PC afforded me the most control over the game’s performance. From lighting (including ray tracing), textures, shadows, animations, physics and so much more can be tweaked to your heart’s content. The framerate can be set to any FPS of your liking. In all honesty, the game defaulted to 30 FPS and it was more than adequate. I did bump it up to 60 FPS and it wasn’t any noticeable better. This goes to show that FPS is not that important when it comes to RTS games overall, only when the fighting gets thick and hectic. But even in the largest combat scenarios, my PC didn’t break a sweat. 

I did not encounter any major technical bugs. Age of Mythology Retold performed more than admirably on my AMD Ryzen 7 7700x CPU and RX 6950XT GPU PC build. One issue that did arise is that the villager priority menu pop-up got stuck during a loading screen after I completed a level during the campaign. Other than that, the game’s performance was essentially spotless. 

Immaculate Audio Design

Similar to other games in the Age franchise, the sound and voice works are top-notch. Characters speak in what appears to be their native ancient languages. In particular, the ancient Egyptian dialect sounds cool as hell and authentic to its pantheon. 

The Age of Mythology Retold soundtrack is comprised of epic orchestral pieces that provide a sense of wonder and mystery. Naturally, this is quite befitting for a game that deals with gods and mythical heroes. Though it can get repetitive after some time, the tracks are stellar nonetheless. 

Sound effects all sound on point. Especially combat, where clashes of swords, siege weapons, and the destruction of buildings all provide satisfying audio feedback. My personal favorite is the siege weapon effects. You can feel that sense of destruction siege weapons cause with the immense sound they produce. 

Final Thoughts on Age of Mythology Retold

In the pantheon of the gods, Age of Mythology Retold is a titular remake of epic proportions. The game continues the impressive form of the recent  Age remakes and sequels. From a dearth of content to quality-of-life improvements, extensive accessibility features, and even mod support, expect the game to have a long tail for the foreseeable future. The gods favor the bold, and Age of Mythology Retold is undoubtedly Herculean. 

Note – A key was provided for the purpose of this review.

Age of Mythology Retold Final Score – 9.0 / 10

Pros

• Great Graphics and VFX
• Balanced and Idiosyncratic Factions
• Great Quality-of-Life Improvements
• Tons of Content, Creation Support, and Mods
• Meaningful Accessibility Options
• Affordable Pricing

Cons

• Tale of the Dragon Content Missing
• Soundtrack Can Get Repetitive