Ahead of Gamescom, we had the chance to speak with Kristen Pirillo, Senior Game Designer at World’s Edge to uncover why the studio and its partners are poised to deliver a much-anticipated – and incredibly comprehensive – refresh of a classic that could otherwise have been destined to be remembered only by a select few.  

While Age of Mythology has been left alone for over two decades, Pirillo shares that there’s a smaller, but deeply passionate community of players still actively invested in the game: “This interest sets Age of Mythology apart from a lot of other games. It may be the least talked about, but it also has the highest brainworm potential. 

“The Age of Mythology crowd is just particularly passionate and incredibly inventive – it was just a matter of waiting for the right time, and using all of the learnings from other Age titles.” 

Age of Mythology: Retold, at its heart, aims to be the game that these fans have been asking for – a faithful recreation of the original, with all the quality-of-life changes that modern development can offer. Retold called for an ambitious vision – the team really wanted to lean into the larger-than-life elements of huge mythological armies, monsters, and bombastic God Powers in a way that were previously limited by the tech of the time. 

This is immediately evident in the game’s visual design, especially when comparing unit models from the original game to their shiny new versions in Retold. The art team had a strong vision of what the game should look like – epic proportions, atmospheric worlds, and of course, horrible monsters. Pirillo describes this process using the Argus as an example, an Atlantean monster unit.  

“In Age of Mythology, it’s just a rough sphere with some tentacles, but in Retold, we can do so much more,” Pirillo shares. “Now it’s got a ton of eyeballs that all move independently, it slithers around, and it’s just kind of gross. But the idea is we want to amp everything up and really maximize the mythology.” 

Aside from straightforward improvements, Retold also brings significant changes to the original – never clearer than in the use of God Powers. God Powers in the original game are extremely powerful abilities that can only be used once per battle, whether it’s to immediately nuke an enemy from existence or significantly boost your resources. The issue was that they were so powerful, that players often saved them up, and ended up never using them at all. In Retold, these powers are now reusable, more reminiscent of Ultimate abilities in a hero shooter, changing the stakes of a match while letting you indulge. 

And the core to all of the team’s work, while it seems obvious, is that modern technology just allows you to have more of absolutely everything at one time. More units, more monsters, more God powers exploding across the map; Age of Mythology: Retold can support the carnage that players have always wanted to unleash.  

“One change that is huge for me is the increased population cap, so you can have absolutely massive armies,” Pirillo adds. “These armies can be made up of lots of different types of units. Some armies can just be monsters, and that’s just not something that the original game could handle. Even if you don’t win, it’s extremely satisfying to watch.” 

Approachable Changes 

The benefit of 20 years of feedback from such an invested community is that changes can be made to accommodate every type of player for the better. For instance, in the original Age of Mythology, the Norse faction was considered to have a higher bar to entry, and this is something that the team wanted to tweak for Retold to make the faction more approachable for everyone. 

“We’ve added more content within the base game for the Norse, new units and buildings, and a lot of the existing things have been rebalanced,” Pirillo says. “It’s also much less punishing if you make a mistake.” 

There’s also a new God Pack coming with the premium edition of Age of Mythology: Retold – the Freyr God Pack, which will unlock a major God and several minor Gods, giving players even more avenues to get started with the Norse adventure. 

“You’re not locked into one play style if you play as the Norse now,” Pirillo adds. “You’re not stuck just playing offensively or following one build order – there’s a lot more variability on how the match can go, and so many more branches of strategy.” 

There’s also now a villager priority system, so if you’d prefer to not have to keep checking on the nitty gritty parts of economy management and focus entirely on the battles and the story, you can set that to run automatically. When Pirillo shares that Age of Mythology has been built with the community, it is meant quite literally. The team sifted through 20 years of feedback shared about the game, trawling old school internet forums to find common frustrations that could be tweaked, as well as creative suggestions from those early days of play that may not have been easily implemented back in 2002. 

“Our designers really did their homework, and lots of them are fans of the original game too,” Pirillo says. “It feels like being Indiana Jones, going back to archaeological levels of the internet to find what was good or back then, and bringing it into Retold.” 

Age of Mythology: Retold is set to be a welcome and well-planned homecoming for those long-time fans, but it’s also going to be a great starting point for those that have never played the original game too. What’s even better, is that the game will continue to evolve as long as there’s still exciting mythology to add, and as Pirillo notes, there’s about two millenniums worth of it to tap into.  

“You don’t have to be good at RTS to enjoy the story,” Pirillo says. “You don’t have to be good at RTS to just enjoy the carnal satisfaction of building 25 huge Stag Beetles and storming through your friend’s town. It’s whimsical fun that anyone will enjoy.” 

Age of Mythology: Retold comes to Xbox Series X|S, PC, and Game Pass September 4.