Chris InglisMyth of Empires launched v1.0 on February 22 for us in ANZ, developed by Angela Game and Imperium Interactive Entertainment. Having played a playtest version in January, I was excited to see if the improvements that had been made since then. The playtest had a few performance and language issues which was concerning so close to full release. I am pleased to report the language issues are fixed for English translations, and for the most part my graphical issues were better, but still there. However, I have still been having a blast playing with Justin on a private server.
Myth of Empires throws you into a vast world with a staggering amount of freedom. You’ll gather resources, craft tools and weapons, and eventually construct a home, a village, or even a sprawling city – whatever your imagination can think up. You can build a cozy cottage, a towering fortress, or even a monstrous city, so long as you have the resources and planning skills. There is also a new planting system that adds another layer to base development, allowing you to cultivate crops and manage a functioning in-game economy.
The game offers both single-player and multiplayer experiences. You can forge your own path in the solo world, or team up with friends to build a shared empire and dominate the server. Guild mechanics allow for large-scale cooperation, adding a social layer to the gameplay. We played on a private server and so it was just the two of us. This was great because we had no one to hassle us with PvP encounters or building where we wanted to have set up base.
On the other hand, we had noone to recruit to our guild to be able to lighten the load of having to collect so many resources. The sheer amount of craftable items and complex build mechanics can be overwhelming at first and we recommend following the well-structured quests as they appear. There’s a certain satisfaction in mastering these systems as you unlock them, but be prepared to invest some serious time into gathering and building.
The graphics of the game are oustanding with some insanely picturesque sunsets and sunrises. It gets quite dark at night when you’re away from camp, but the moonlight adds a great atmosphere. Waterways look well detailed, as do the animals we have encountered so far. We have quests to go and retrieve treasure from bandit camps and other such encounters, but we’re still happily chipping away at building our base and crafting better weapons and armour for ourselves.
Myth of Empires offers a variety of ways to interact with the world. You can tame and breed horses, adding a whole new layer to exploration and combat. You’ll need to craft several pieces to be able to first capture/tame and then ride the horses, but they made traversing long distances to points of interest so much quicker. Justin as the server host could just teleport to anywhere on the map, but I had to run everywhere. Completing quests is not a joint affair like in Enshrouded. You each have to complete your own quests, so while Justin could flit around quickly, I still had to run everywhere and collect everything for my own quests.
When it came to building a base, we basically had to build two of everything to get through the quests. Two doors, two sets of walls (which we needed anyway), and so on, but we put together a pretty sturdy base. We could have chosen to ignore the quests, but they are very helpful in preparing you for the next steps. For example going from a crafting bench to a kiln, a spool, furnace and knowing what resources to collect for each.
I love the crafting system in this game. It’s incredibly complex but the more you interact with it, the more you understand it’s depth, and learning new recipes is a case of unlocking the technology in the tree. You can easily plot which recipes you need to work on now and the future, and we split up tasks such that Justin prioritised building things while I worked on weapons/armour. The more recipes you unlock, the more cluttered the crafting interface gets, so that could perhaps use some form of filtering, but it’s not hard to quickly scroll through.
Combat in Myth of Empires can feel slow at first but you can use positional attacks which is helpful when fighting multiple enemies at once. Sometimes you will see a fox or boar by themselves so you engage them in combat. However most of the time they were be foraging in a pack, the others were just obscured from view by trees or bushes. We levelled up quite fast completing the gathering and building tasks, so we could handle animals around our level easily. Bows are great, and crossbows are even better.
While we are happy doing our own thing on our private server, the official servers have heaps of guilds that can fight in large-scale warfare. You can command sizeable armies and engage in epic clashes with other players or PvE enemies. We will probably try it eventually, but it’s quite bliss just learning the game ourselves and not having to worry about being raided.
Overall, Myth of Empires offers a compelling world to explore either solo or co-op on official servers or creating your own. If you crave a deep, open-world sandbox experience with a strong emphasis on crafting, building, and large-scale warfare, then Myth of Empires is an easy recommend. The learning curve can feel steep if you’re a little impatient, but following the well-structured quests holds your hand just enough to show the way.
This review utilised keys provided by Reverb Communications and Myth of Empires is available now on Steam.
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