We're heading east.
In amidst all the mechs, anime, Phil Spencer speaking Japanese, and whatever the hell Slitterhead was, Xbox’s Tokyo Game Show presentation also showed off a few tantalising seconds of a new expansion for Age of Mythology: Retold—its Age of Empires: Definitive Edition-ification of the god-battling RTS from 2002.
It’s called Immortal Pillars, and from the brief glimpse we got, this is the one that brings the Chinese civilisation back to the game. When Age of Mythology: Retold was announced, some players were curious why it wasn’t coming with the Chinese civ that joined the original game in its 2016 Tale of the Dragon expansion. The reason, more likely than not, was that no one liked that expansion very much, and the devs on Retold wanted to rework it before bundling it into their re-do.
Well, I guess that reworking has already come some way. In the trailer, we get snippets of Chinese soldiers stomping about, junks floating in the water, and various creatures from Chinese mythology that I—as some guy from the UK’s East Midlands—do not quite feel confident identifying.
It looks cool, though of course the proof will be in the pudding. When will that pudding arrive? Xbox doesn’t want you to know just yet, inviting you to wishlist the pudding over on its Steam page, where it has a release date of “Coming soon”. The pudding is the expansion, by the way. Sorry if I got you excited about actual pudding. None is forthcoming.
I’ve got a good feeling about this one, despite the brief look. Our Age of Mythology: Retold review was pretty positive on the game, scoring it 75% and praising the visual overhaul for the difference it makes even with the old game’s now-creaky mechanics. The fact that the devs have seen fit to rework the original, unloved expansion into something that hopefully succeeds a bit better suggests to me their hearts are in the right place. But we’ll have to wait for that pudding before I can make a declarative statement either way.
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