Xbox Game Pass Just Quietly Added the Most Epic Mythology Game of All Time
The power of the gods is yours.
Strategy games are all about control, whether that’s building your own natural history museum or dominating the battlefield. There’s a rare fantasy that only a strategy game can fulfill, making you feel like the ultimate mastermind pulling the strings. Age of Mythology: Retold appeals to that battlefield fantasy more than any real-time strategy game out there, casting you as a legendary mythological god leading your forces to victory. The remake gives a classic game a new lease on life, and with its inclusion on Xbox Game Pass, you have dozens of hours of one of the best strategy games ever made at your fingertips.
An offshoot of the Age of Empires franchise, Age of Mythology lets you command the pantheons of Greek, Egyptian, and Norse mythology through a massive 50-mission campaign or in matches against bots or other players. It’s a classical RTS where you gather resources, build a base, assemble an army, and conquer everything. But the brilliance of Age of Mythology lies in two crucial facets — its brilliantly asymmetric gameplay and its storytelling.
Age of Mythology crams hundreds of units on-screen, from hulking giants to skittering Scorpion-men.
An asymmetric RTS means that each playable civilization is different, rather than similar with only slight variations. StarCraft 2, for example, is an asymmetric game. Age of Mythology heavily leans into that styling, with each civilization having different units, different gods and powers, different ways of gathering resources, and more. The Greeks have powerful myth units and cavalry, while the Egyptians have some great boosts to economy and a unique Pharaoh leader. The Norse, on the other hand, are great in close-quarters combat and gain favor for research and building myth units by being directly in combat, unlike the other civilizations.
The sheer difference between the civilizations is what gives Age of Mythology an exciting edge, requiring you to shift strategies depending on who you’re playing, who you’re going up against, and who your allies are. These differences are bolstered even more by each civilization’s god powers — letting you unleash game-changing abilities. As you advance through the “ages” you’ll gain access to god powers both big and small, like calling in rain to boost your farm’s productions, unleashing an earthquake that levels the opponent’s building, or turning your Pharaoh into a lightning-blasting Son of Osiris.
Advancing to the Mythic Age during a match will let you build a gate that summons a hulking Titan for you to command.
With all these dynamic options in each civilization, nearly every match of Age of Mythology can feel entirely different, even across dozens of hours. But if single-player stuff is more your speed, Age of Mythology’s campaign also leans into that asymmetric design to tell one of the best RTS stories out there.
You take on the role of an Atlantean named Arkantos, who sets out on a quest to stop the Cyclops Gargarensis from reviving the Titans and bringing the whole world to ruin. Across its various missions, Age of Mythology sequentially takes you through the worlds of each mythology, letting you play as each one in specifically designed missions and set pieces that tie into the themes or tales of each pantheon. In one mission you have to rescue Odysseus and his men after they were turned into pigs, another has you awakening a powerful Egyptian Guardian by sneaking its sword through enemy forces, while a Norse mission sees you luring out chieftains of clans to defeat them and steal their soldiers.
Age of Mythology’s story isn’t the most complex, but it’s a fun tale filled with heroics and twists.
Nearly every single mission in Age of Mythology has some kind of unique idea or objective, which makes the campaign as a whole feel uniquely varied and dynamic. The game also draws heavily from its mythologic inspirations for the actual narrative, meaning plenty of twists, turns, and larger-than-life characters.
Between the lengthy campaign and multiplayer matches, you'll have plenty to keep you busy in Age of Mythology: Retold, but developer World’s Edge also has big plans to add even more to the game — with two new pantheons on the way (including one based on Asian mythology) and more Mythical Battles, one-off missions with unique settings. Retold has already made sweeping changes to Age of Mythology’s gameplay to make it feel better than ever, but it promises to turn into even more. If you’re itching for a deep strategy game, but one that still has a bit of levity, Age of Mythology: Retold is one of 2024’s absolute best.
