After much debate (and some requests) I have signed up with crowdfunding service Patreon to better support future blogging efforts. You can find my Patreon page here and more information after the jump.
Saturday, 16 January 2077
Support The Wertzone on Patreon
STICKIED POST
After much debate (and some requests) I have signed up with crowdfunding service Patreon to better support future blogging efforts. You can find my Patreon page here and more information after the jump.
After much debate (and some requests) I have signed up with crowdfunding service Patreon to better support future blogging efforts. You can find my Patreon page here and more information after the jump.
Wednesday, 1 April 2026
Citizen Sleeper
In the distant future humans can digitise their consciousness and place it in android replicants, "Sleepers." A Sleeper escapes indentured servitude on a freighter and finds themselves on the Eye, a large space station formerly controlled by the Solheim Corporation but is now contested between several factions. A former trade union turned civil authority, Havenage, uneasily shares the station with a criminal operation named Yatagan. The Sleeper must navigate between these factions and find some way of escaping the station and living a good life.
Citizen Sleeper was originally released in 2022 and attracted significant acclaim on release. The game can be summarised as part roleplaying game, part survival resource-juggler and part adventure game. The game is smoothly minimalist, playing entirely from a map of the Eye space station, occasionally with character art displayed whilst conversations are held.
The story unfolds over multiple days. At the start of each day, you roll a series of dice. The results of the dice can be applied to different activities, such as doing a day job for money, investigating the station to further the storyline or hacking into the station network and uncovering the secrets of its long-dormant mainframe (evading ancient security programmes in the process).
Citizen Sleeper's storyline feels quite tight at the start but then starts sprawling in numerous different directions. There are multiple ways to escape the station, different factions to align with, and a dozen or so significant characters you can develop relationships with, some of whom can help you, others hinder. Some characters are antagonistic but can be won over to help you; some are initially friendly but have hidden, darker agendas you might deal with.
Your Sleeper requires food and energy, meaning you sometimes have to make tough choices on whether to do more activities or spend dice on sustenance. But if you take too long, you can start losing dice (representing your growing weakness). The numbers you roll on your dice also have different application. In general, the higher the number the better, but some tasks require you to precisely match a number and you can't do anything without anything else, meaning you may have to wait a few days and several rerolls before accomplishing that task.
Your character does level up periodically and you get new abilities such as being able to reroll dice once a week or being able to tackle specialist tasks.
It's a compelling mix of interesting systems, complicated further by various ticking clocks, such as a character completing their own mission before they are ready to help you or until pursuers catch up with you on the station. Things stay just on the right side of being overwhelming, and the game is generally fair with you about keeping your character informed about what's going on and what possibilities there are for things to do next. However, the game can also be relatively ruthless in shutting down the possibility for hedging your bets: once you commit to a course of action, some other possibilities are invalidated.
With a single run of the game taking less than eight hours (depending on your choices, you might wrap up one in maybe four), it's short enough to encourage multiple replays and it can be surprising to see how your choices can impact the game. One playthrough might see you developing a major quest to discover your original human identity; in another, this might barely be mentioned as a factor in the story. One run might see you explore the entire station and visit every location, the next might see you leaving the station with half the map still in darkness. Your impact on the story is considerable, and fascinating.
Obviously this is a low-budget game, but the production values are quite impressive. The graphics are minimalist but atmospherically effective, the soundtrack is superb and the writing is quite compelling. Most of the NPC characters are well-written and engaging, and the game does a good job of holding your attention and making you make tough choices, with the consequences for failure being usually as interesting as those for success. Citizen Sleeper does a lot with not a lot of resources.
That said, the game can feel a bit punishing, especially near the start, and occasionally too reliant on the RNG number gods to progress to the next part of the story, resulting in bursts of wheel-spinning. The game is still short enough that this is not a major problem, but it can be a source of occasional frustration.
Citizen Sleeper (****) is a fascinating and well-written game, with a lot of substantive choices to make and encouraging of replays. The game is available on PC, Nintendo Switch, Microsoft Xbox One and Series X/S, and PlayStation 4 and 5. A sequel, Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector, was released last year.
Thank you for reading The Wertzone. To help me provide better content, please consider contributing to my Patreon page and other funding methods.
New China Miéville novel gets cover art and blurb
China Miéville's enormous new novel now has cover art and an expanded blurb.
"From the bestselling, award-winning master of uncanny fiction comes a defining work, twenty years in the making – a deeply moving, decade- and continent-spanning epic of grief, global tumult, and grim conspiracy.
"Maur’s life has been shaped by an unbearable loss. But in the aftermath of what is an apparently ordinary tragedy, deeper, stranger questions arise . . . Their answers may lie within the dark heart and darker history of an old soldier who shares Maur’s obsessions – and is violently pursued by the same unknown, unquiet forces.
"So begins The Rouse, a book unlike any other: at once a sprawling saga of a bloody century, and the intimate story of two lives, their loves, regrets and secrets – and a terrifying journey into infinite mystery."
The Rouse, all 1,264 pages of it, is currently due for publication on 17 September 2026.
Tuesday, 31 March 2026
Blogging Roundup: 1 November 2025 to 31 March 2026
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The Wertzone
News
Ultra-long web saga The Wandering Inn to get physical releases starting this autumn
Peter Jackson to produce yet another frankly unnecessary Lord of the Rings film
Hulu passes on Buffy the Vampire Slayer sequel series after shooting a pilot
Red Dwarf co-creator returns to franchise after thirty years with new novel
Royal Shakespeare Company confirms launch of Game of Thrones: The Mad King for Summer 2026
Pinnacle Entertainment launches Deadlands 30th Anniversary Kickstarter
Baldur's Gate TV series in development at HBO from Last of Us team
Hugh Cook's epic Chronicles of an Age of Darkness series returns to print
Brandon Sanderson's Cosmere setting picked up for adaptation by Apple TV
New Malazan novel, Legacies of Betrayal, slated for October 2026 release
Creative Assembly announce Total War: Medieval III, confirm another game announcement for next week
Tor Books passes on completing JV Jones's Sword of Shadows series, author to pursue self-publishing
Mass Effect TV series to be an original story set after the original video game trilogy
Features
Reviews
Monday, 30 March 2026
Tor Books release the rights to THE SWORD OF SHADOWS series by J.V. Jones
Tor Books have agreed to revert the rights to the first four books in the Sword of Shadows series to author J.V. Jones. Jones had completed the fifth book in the series, Endlords, last year but Tor had declined to publish it. Jones is now free to pursue either publishing the entire series with another outlet, or self-publishing herself.
As has been related before, Jones launched her career in a blaze of success in 1995 with the Book of Words trilogy. Emboldened by a strong critical reception and cover quotes from Robert Jordan, the trilogy went on to sell over a million copies for Warner Books. Jones also published a successful standalone novel, The Barbed Coil, and then started the Sword of Shadows sequence in 1999 with A Cavern of Black Ice. The fourth volume, Watcher of the Dead, was published in 2010. Subsequent major life issues interfered with the writing and publication of further books in the series until she was able to resume work on it in 2017. The writing went slowly due to the demands of the day job, until she was able to leave that job and work full-time on the book in 2024, after which progress dramatically increased.
Jones isn't resting on her laurels, as she has also been shopping around a complete urban fantasy novel, Sorry Jones, and is now some way into the writing of the sixth and final Sword of Shadows novel, A Sword Named Loss.
The reversion of the rights means that Jones now controls the audio, ebook and print rights for her entire body of work. The Book of Words and Sword of Shadows are set in the same world (though you do not need to have read the prior trilogy to enjoy the last sextet), giving a new publisher access to a nearly-complete nine-volume sequence, not to mention two more standalone books.
Whether another publisher would be interested in the series remains to be seen (although I believe some talks have been held), but it does confirm that the remaining two volumes in the superb Sword of Shadows series will appear at some point, which is sure to relieve fans.
Saturday, 28 March 2026
Ultra-long web saga THE WANDERING INN to get physical releases starting this autumn
In news to make bookshelves everywhere tremble in fear, the very popular web saga The Wandering Inn is to start getting physical releases at the end of this year.
Written by "Pirateaba," the saga tells the story of Erin Solstice, a young woman who is transported from Earth to a fantastical world which works according to rules almost out of a video game. Erin finds herself in charge of an inn, and growing more skilled in her role as she tries to figure out what is going on, and more about the world she finds herself in.
Written by "Pirateaba," the saga tells the story of Erin Solstice, a young woman who is transported from Earth to a fantastical world which works according to rules almost out of a video game. Erin finds herself in charge of an inn, and growing more skilled in her role as she tries to figure out what is going on, and more about the world she finds herself in.
The saga began publication ten years ago and since then has expended to a mind-boggling 16.2 million words, which is equal to 3.7 Wheels of Time, 4.9 Malazan Books of the Fallen and 9.3 Songs of Ice and Fire. The story has been collected into eighteen unabridged "books" for ebook and audiobook purposes, but these books only cover the first half or so of the complete saga so far.
HarperCollins are publishing the first two books in physical format, though for space reasons both books have been split into two volumes apiece. These divide as follows:
- The Wandering Inn: Book One, Part One
- No Killing Goblins: Book One, Part Two
- Fae and Fare: Book Two, Part One
- Immortal Games: Book Two, Part Two
The first two volumes will be published on 24 September this year, the latter two on 5 November. Presumably the physical publication of further books will depend on how well these initial volumes do.
The remaining books are called Flowers of Esthelm, Winter Solstice, The Last Light, The General of Izril, The Rains of Liscor, Blood of Liscor, Tears of Liscor, The Wind Runner, The Titan of Baleros, Witch of Webs, The Empress of Beasts, Hell's Wardens, Garden of Sanctuary, King of Duels, Lady of Fire, Archmage's Ire and the forthcoming Couriers Outbound. As noted, however, the collected volumes only cover about 40% of the webnovel so far, itself incomplete with the project projected at somewhere between one-third and two-thirds complete (so maybe around half).
All things considered, if the physical versions are successful, HarperCollins may find themselves publishing over 100 physical books by a single author (and not short ones either) to see this through, which will be impressive.
The physical release will also be accompanied by the first canonical map for the series, depicting the continent of Izril, where the titular Wandering Inn is located (outside the city of Liscor in the centre of the continent).
It will be interesting to see if the physical release brings the series to a wider audience and if HarperCollins will be able to bring the entire series to publication.
Judge Dredd: The Complete Case Files - Volume 02
Earth, 2100. Mega-City Two, the vast super-conurbation stretching down the west coast of North America, has fallen victim to a malevolent plague. Mega-City One has developed an antidote, but the airspace over the mega cities is contested, so the only way to deliver the plague is overland, through the radioactive, burned-out wasteland separating the two: the Cursed Earth. Obviously only one man is capable of undertaking this epic journey: Judge Dredd. But whilst Dredd is away, there are those back in Mega-City One taking advantage of his absence...
The first volume of The Complete Case Files introduced the insane techno-hellscape of crime-ridden Mega-City One and its enforcers of law and order, the Judges. It's probably fair to say that volume is not the best introduction to the world of Judge Dredd, featuring as it does overwhelmingly violent action stories designed to appeal to teenage boys in the late 1970s. Subtlety, in-depth worldbuilding and strong thematic development were not high on the agenda, and the franchise showed little of the satirical bite and intelligence that would characterise it at its best. Still, it showed some promise, especially when it delved into Dredd's backstory or moved away from crime-of-the-week capers towards longer narratives, like the Robot Wars arc.
By contrast, Volume 02 is just two massive narratives, with a few one-off stories between, and is immediately much better for it. Much of the first half of the volume is taken up by The Cursed Earth, which runs from Prog #65 to #85, and is the first critically-acclaimed Dredd epic. Heavily inspired by Roger Zelazny's Damnation Alley, it sees Dredd taking a road trip from Mega-City One on the Eastern Seaboard to Mega-City Two on the west coast, bringing urgently-needed vaccines to the sister-city.
Despite being classified as a single saga, the story is really a themed collection of episodes, linked by the device of the journey. Early on Dredd has to deal with mad mutants living in the Appalachians (where Mount Rushmore has been moved for unclear reasons), robotic vampires serving the last President of the United States, Mississippi plantationers using enslaved aliens, a cloned dinosaur theme park in the Rockies where the dinos have escaped and run amuck (did Michael Crichton read 2000AD?), and shenanigans in Las Vegas where the local Judges have gone rogue and become their own Mafia-like gang.
There's definitely a lot more dark satire here than in the first volume, and in fact the volume has to legally omit the most problematic storyline, in which it's revealed the pre-nuclear-war rivalry between local McDonalds and Burger King franchises has escalated into full-scale actual warfare. One infamous scene has a guy dressed as Ronald McDonald executing an employee for spilling a milkshake. Another episode, also omitted, has a mad scientist who looks like Colonel Sanders creating evil creatures based on corporate mascots, including the Green Giant and the Michelin Man. Rebellion did somehow negotiate the rights to use these elements in The Cursed Earth Uncensored edition from a few years ago (now out of print), but The Complete Case Files sadly has to make do without. The episodic nature of the story does mean you don't really notice their absence.
The story is solid, and some of the satire is quite biting, with alien slave Tweak and his story of enslavement in what is effectively the American South (if one reduced to a post-apocalyptic waste) being quite on-the-nose for the late 1970s. We also get a nice amount of worldbuilding by meeting President Booth, the leader of the United States when the third and last world war broke out, and explanations for how Dredd's world evolved out of ours.
If the story has a problem, it can be a little repetitive, goes on a little too long and the defaulting to using explosive ultraviolence to solve every problem can get predictable. Still, the sheer unhinged lunacy of some aspects of the story, like Judge Dredd facing off against a killer mutant tyrannosaurus, is quite entertaining.
The story rolls almost immediately into The Day The Law Died, which ran from Prog 89 to 108. After some odd cases back in Mega-City One hinting that not everything has been running smoothly in Dredd's absence, the city is taken over in a coup by Deputy Chief Judge Cal. Cal initially appears competent, but quickly goes totally insane, enforces the death penalty for the most ludicrous infractions, has alien mercenaries enforce his rule, and appoints his pet goldfish to second-in-command of the city. He neutralises Dredd early on, forcing Dredd to go underground and form a resistance to try to retake the city.
Cal is - fairly blatantly - based on the Roman Emperor Caligula, which may seem random until you remember that the BBC mini-series I, Claudius had been absolutely huge on British TV just two years earlier, with John Hurt on superb form as the deranged Caligula.
The story is again a bit overlong, and suffers a bit from the infamously fractious people of Mega-City One, who normally make the citizens of Springfield, Pawnee and Star's Hollow look quiet and orderly in comparison, going along with Cal's crazy stunts far too meekly. I get the impression the writers agreed and we get a late-story retcon trying to explain how everyone has been put under Cal's spell, but as an idea it's a bit weaksauce.
Instead, the story is mostly an excuse for action and for the development of a larger cast of secondary characters, including the introduction of Judge Griffin, as well as some crazy setpieces and comedic ideas, like Judge Fish, or Judge Schmaltz living up to his name to Dredd's extreme frustration.
By the end of Volume 02 (***½), we're still not up to speed with Dredd at his best, but we're getting closer. The few cases-of-the-week are unremarkable, but the two extended sagas are both solid stories with some great worldbuilding and side-characters. Both stories are probably a bit too padded, and the suspension of disbelief required to accept that Cal would get away with half the things he does before someone shoots him is quite strong, but we're seeing the comic start the development of its satirical bite and darker undertones that will become a much bigger part of its appeal later on.
The Complete Case Files Volume 02 contains almost every Judge Dredd story printed from Prog (issue) 61 to Prog 115 of the comic 2000AD, published from April 1978 to June 1979. Progs 71-72 and 77-78 are skipped because of legal issues (these stories riff hard on MacDonalds, Burger King and Kentucky Fried Chicken, with scant respect for trademarks). The stories are set in the years 2100 and 2101. The writers in this collection are John Wagner, Pat Mills and Chris Lowder. The artists in this collection are Dave Gibbons, Mike McMahon, Brian Bolland, Brendan McCarthy, Brett Ewins, Garry Leach and Ron Smith.
Thank you for reading The Wertzone. To help me provide better content, please consider contributing to my Patreon page and other funding methods.
Wednesday, 25 March 2026
FOR ALL MANKIND renewed for sixth and final season
For All Mankind has been renewed for a sixth and final season on Apple TV+. The news broke just before the release of Season 5 on 27 March.
The show explores an alternate history of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. It starts in 1969 with mankind first setting foot on the moon...but instead of Neil Armstrong, it's a Soviet cosmonaut. Furious at being beaten to the punch, President Nixon orders NASA to double down on beating the Soviets in building a permanent moonbase, orbital space stations and eventually the exploration of Mars. Each season is set in a different decade, showing significant technological and sociological change over the course of decades in this world where the Space Race was not won, but became supercharged.
The show has flown under the radar with the general audience, but has been a quiet hit for Apple TV+ and is, alongside The Newsroom, it's longest-running show since the streamer debuted in 2019.
Whilst For All Mankind is wrapping up, the wider franchise might have longer legs. Launching on 29 May, the same day For All Mankind airs its Season 5 finale, Star City explores the events of the first season or so of the show from the Soviet perspective.
Peter Jackson to produce yet another frankly unnecessary LORD OF THE RINGS film
Peter Jackson has confirmed he is producing a new, frankly unnecessary Lord of the Rings film, to accompany the other new, frankly unnecessary Lord of the Rings film he is already producing.
Jackson is already producing the borderline spurious Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum, a new film directed by Andy Serkis, who also returns to star as Gollum. The film, set between The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, will depict the various attempts by the wizard Gandalf and his ally Aragorn to locate Gollum and learn more about his mysterious ring. Despite having minimal source material available, the film will reunite multiple castmembers from the original movie trilogy, though will likely recast the role of Aragorn due to Viggo Mortensen looking twenty-six years older than when he made those films. This film is due for release on 17 December 2027.
Jackson has now confirmed that, having scraped the bottom of the barrel, he has punched right through it and is now halfway to Earth's core with a further Lord of the Rings-branded movie. The Lord of the Rings: The Shadow of the Past will apparently expand on the "missing chapters" from the original film, The Fellowship of the Ring, filling in the section between the Hobbits leaving the Shire and arriving in Bree. In the original novel, this section sees the Hobbits pass through Buckland, the part of the Shire east of the River Brandywine, where they regroup at Crickhollow and touch base with their friend Fatty Bolger (the infamous "fifth Hobbit," who stays behind in the Shire whilst the main crew go on their epic adventure). They then enter the Old Forest, running afoul of Old Man Willow and meeting the enigmatically jovial Tom Bombadil and his wife Goldberry, before being pursued by Barrow-wights whilst crossing nearby moorland. Rescued by Bombadil, they resume their journey to Bree.
The original writing team had expressed regret at having to exercise this material for time and tonal reasons, though co-writer Philippa Boyens noted on the DVD that it's wholly possible the Hobbits still had those adventures, they just happen off-screen in the movie.
Noted Middle-earth fan and shortly-to-be-unemployed talk show host Stephen Colbert will co-write the film with Boyens and Peter McGee, whilst Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh will produce. A framing device will see Sam, Merry and Pippin (presumably a returning Sean Astin, Dominic Monaghan and Billy Boyd, though they are not 100% confirmed) reflect on the "missing episode" from some years after the War of the Ring. This will presumably allow their naturally-aged appearances and presumably CGI de-aged versions for the bulk of the action (where they presumably will need to be joined by Elijah Wood). The project does not yet have a director attached or a release date mooted, though it will need to be some time after The Hunt for Gollum's release in 2027.
Rumours that Warner Brothers are developing a full nine-hour trilogy based on a three-paragraph conversation between Frodo, Bilbo and Gloin at the Council of Elrond cannot be substantiated at this time. Yet.
Age of Mythology: Retold
The cyclops Gargarensis has vowed to shatter the gates to the Underworld and release the Titan Kronos back into the world. To this end he has assembled a vast army and set about this task in Greece. Arkantos, hero of Atlantis, sails to the Greek colonies to lend his aid in the Trojan War. Learning of Gargarensis and his plans, Arkantos forges a coalition with the Egyptians and Norse to stand against him.
Age of Mythology, a magic-and-legends spin-off from the venerable Age of Empires real-time strategy series, was released in 2002 and remastered and re-released in 2014. Following the pattern set by its forebear, Age of Empires II, the game has now been remastered and re-released yet again. We are now in the age of not just the remaster, but the remaster of the remaster.
Age of Mythology: Extended Edition was fine, maybe a bit minimalist as remasters go, with better water effects, tweaked textures and greater support for modern resolutions. But it was also bit underwhelming, with the feeling it could have been much more comprehensively updated. The team evidently agreed and after the barnstorming success of Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition (itself a remaster of a remaster), they came back for another go-around.
Age of Mythology: Retold is now the definitive version of the game. Age of Mythology has always flown a bit under the radar, despite being an enjoyable and characterful real-time strategy game with four distinct factions (the Greeks, Egyptians, Norse and Atlanteans), a splendid interface, a reasonable difficulty curve and superb graphics, which take the painterly, 2D approach of Age of Mythology II and adapt it into 3D with subtlety. I always found Age of Mythology to be a more satisfying arrows 'n' spells strategy game than WarCraft III, whilst some of its updates to the Age of Empires formula are superb. The weakest thing to come from the game is arguably the Tale of the Dragon expansion from Extended Edition, which felt a bit undercooked.
The game itself is pretty standard as far as RTS titles go: you start with a base, in this case a town centre, from where you can train workers who construct buildings and work as resource-gatherers. There are four primary resources: wood, gold, food and faith. The first three are used to build mundane structures and units (a mix of archers, cavalry, infantry and siege weapons) whilst faith is used to train "myth units" (sphinxes, dragons, cyclopses, hydras, frost giants etc) and one-off "heroes" (like Odysseus or Achilles). Resource-gathering is a surprisingly flexible system, with multiple ways of getting resources. For example, food can be hunted (peasants kill chickens, bears or pheasants and use them for food), farmed or gained from the sea by sending out fishing boats, whilst gold can either be mined directly, gained through trade at a marketplace or setting up a trade network between your town centres using caravans.
As usual, you amass armies which you can take into battle. The composition of these armies is interesting, with a rock-paper-scissors mechanic complicated by the deployment of counter-units (pikemen who are marginally effective in infantry battles but devastating against cavalry), so assembling a well-balanced force is essential. Early in a game, units can be fragile, so making sure you get unit upgrades from an armoury to improve armour, attack and resilience to specific damage types, like bludgeoning or piercing is also important. As each game proceeds, you can upgrade to a different age, which unlocks new units and building types.
This is all standard, but Age of Mythology nails the details very well. This was one of the first RTS games that allowed you to automatically task newly-built units (so right click on a gold mine to make all the villagers built after this point automatically go over and start mining), resulting in a very smooth and intuitive playing experience.
In terms of gameplay, Age of Mythology is hugely enjoyable, but it does focus a lot on attack. Whilst some games give you impressive options for defence and turtling, like StarCraft and its bunkers, photon cannons and siege tanks, Age of Mythology's defensive structures tend to be less effective, with walls and towers coming down very easily to enemy action (disappointingly, as the game's wall-building system may be one of the best in any RTS game ever made, allowing you to built elaborate fortifications very easily). The game is at its best when you are constantly engaging the enemy, reinforcing as needed and keeping them on the back foot. Tactically, a fine balance is needed between known when to keep up an attack and when to fall back for reinforcement.
In terms of story, the game has a very silly but enjoyable narrative which mixes up the Norse, Egyptian, Greek and Atlantean legends and stories in a manner that's contrived but fun. The story can't hope to match WarCraft III's beautiful cut scenes and in-game plot twists, but it does know when to butt out and not interfere with gameplay (a lesson other RTS games could learn from, even now) through endless cut scenes and major reversals you can't do anything about. Age of Mythology remains a pretty fair game in that sense.
Retold eliminates many of the previous negatives about the game. AI is dramatically improved, eliminating some of the dumber enemy moves and improving the responsiveness of your units. Pathfinding is dramatically improved.The one-shot god powers have been replaced by cooldown abilities instead. The game leans a bit more into the differences between the factions, making them feel more distinctive. For a game that's almost a quarter of a century old, Age of Mythology feels quite fresh and modern in most respects even before the Retold improvements are accounted for.
Those improvements are significant. The biggest change is the lighting, which is now gorgeous, and the basic elimination of draw distance limitations, making in-game cutscenes (when you are most likely to be gazing across the battlefield) much more attractive. Improvements in textures and rendering make the units and buildings hold up extremely well even at 4K and zoomed-in, but the game remains very undemanding by modern standards, meaning potatoes can run it relatively well (things only start to chug if you set up skirmish matches with the unit cap increased to preposterous levels). There are also welcome improvements to the UI, which is now more intuitive, and the ability to automate resource gathering. You can now set ratios so every new villager you create is automatically assigned to a task (so set an equal ratio and new villagers will automatically be assigned to each resource in turn), though this can also be turned off. Gameplay and balance changes are minor but noticeable: walls feel a bit sturdier than in the base games, and units now automatically use their special abilities rather than requiring direct player intervention.
Content wise, Retold includes the original campaign, divided between the Greeks, Egyptians and Norse, and the Golden Gift mini-campaign for the Dwarves, plus The Titans expansion for the Atlanteans. This is a sizeable amount of content, with a playthrough of the singleplayer campaign content lasting a reasonable 35-40 hours. Two additional, paid-for expansions are also available. Pillars of the Gods is set in China and Yasuko's Tale is set in Japan. Both add an 8-hour-ish campaign and a new faction apiece, obviously the Chinese and Japanese. The Tale of the Dragon expansion is forgotten about here (probably for the best) with the new expansions being much better-written and voice-acted, with more compelling stories and gameplay, not to mention narrative ties to the original campaigns. More content is incoming, with an Aztec-themed expansion due this year, and the occasional addition of new gods, heroes and units for the existing factions.
Age of Mythology: Retold (*****) takes one of the RTS genre's underdogs and turns it into the game it was always meant to be. Twenty-four years after release, Age of Mythology finally realises its potential. The game is available now on PC, Xbox Series S / X and PlayStation 5.
Note: Part of this review was previously published in 2018.
Thank you for reading The Wertzone. To help me provide better content, please consider contributing to my Patreon page and other funding methods.
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