The early 2000s was arguably the best era for the strategy genre, particularly for real-time strategy games.StarcraftandAge of Empires 2established a gameplay formula at the end of the 1990s that would become the foundations for the entire RTS subgenre moving forward, and games like the originalAge of Mythologyhelped to refine and build upon those foundations in the following years.
Despite being a major critical and commercial success, 2002’sAge of Mythologydidn’t receive any proper sequel. Instead, it received just one expansion a year after its launch, and a divisive Extended Edition re-release in 2014. But a decade later,Age of Mythologyhas come out of hiding, delivering a remake that shouldn’t just excite fans of the series, but also fans of fellow big-budget strategy franchises likeCivilization.
Why Age of Mythology: Retold’s Release Should Get Civilization Fans Excited
Age of Mythology: Retold Continues The Strategy Genre’s Modern Renaissance
While strategy games have remained a popular part of PC gaming, the last few years have seen a definite rise in the number of high-quality, big-budget strategy games that have hit both PC and consoles.Civilization 6released back in 2016, and it’s still being played by fans across a wide variety of platforms. TheCrusader Kingsserieshas continued to carve its own niche in the strategy market.Frostpunk’s darker tone set it apart from the crowd in 2018.Stellarisdelivered Sci-Fi grand strategy on a scale never really seen before. And though it didn’t end up being a commercial success, even Marvel threw its hat in the ring withMidnight Suns.
There has been a multitude of excellent strategy game releases over the last few years, ushering in something of a new golden age for the genre.Age of Mythology: Retoldextends this golden age even further, delivering an excellent remake that makes some vital changes, but keeps the essence of the original game alive and well.
Age of Mythology: Retold’s high quality has led it to receive some great reviews across the board, with the remake currently sitting atan 83 on Metacritic, with even its lowest scores putting it at a respectable 7/10.Age of Mythology: Retoldalso seems to be performing well in terms of active players, with the tracking site SteamDB claiming that the remake has a 24-hour peak player count of 16,845 at the time of writing. These numbers are pretty solid, especially when they don’t take into account anyone playing on Xbox.
Age of Mythology: Retold– much like the other great strategy games that have come before it in recent years – proves that the strategy genre is still doing well enough to keep demanding big-budget titles. That bodes well forCivilization 7, which is being touted as the biggest entry in franchise history. And with such heavy competition now,Civ 7developer Firaxisis going to need to work harder than ever before to live up to expectations.
Age of Mythology: Retold Paves The Way for a New Type of Civilization Game
Over the last few decades, theCivilizationfranchise has tested the waters with experimental spin-offs a few times. More often than not, these spin-offs have been Sci-Fi themed, with2014’sCivilization: Beyond Earthbeing the most recent example. It might be fun to seeCivilizationexperiment with more varied types of spin-offs in the coming years, andAge of Mythology: Retold’s core premise would offer some great inspiration.
