20 years ago, the umpteenth twist of the RTS (Real Time Strategy) genre arrived in stores from the hand of Microsoft, after its enormous successes in the second half of the 90s with those age of empires glorious and others lesser Close combat, based on real battles of World War II and which did not have as much travel or commercial success. Even so, the first years of the new millennium were the golden age of strategy and we would see the birth of a certain The age of mythology.
Are we going to disturb the dead?
The fact is that a few days ago we learned that Microsoft was ready to revive this franchise, which for many of you surely rested peacefully on a CD as long as you can still access with your PC. Moreover, in May 2014, we had the chance
Do you remember this version? Why not? Well, that’s the level of expectation that must exist right now from users who want to revive a calm dead person without anyone bothering them for a long time. Why try again to make an old formula work that no one asks for? What’s the point of recovering franchises that no longer belong to this era? If not, look at the proof of Age of Empires IV last year: Microsoft announced its development, released it directly to Game Pass (here it is) and… Do you think he had the same success as 25 years ago with the first ones?
Obviously not. There are specific video game sagas and genres that belong to a specific time in history and are not understood outside of that time period. It’s like the platformers that flooded 8-bit and 16-bit consoles, or the pure arcade titles from the early years of video gaming in the late 70s and early 80s: you can’t stretch your gum while waiting for the blows to come back
RTS have evolved a lot…
The thing is, Microsoft must be the only one that didn’t realize that very few gamers are waiting for a reinterpretation of an old classic like this to come along. The age of mythology and less an adaptation of the original game and its expansions because, although they announce novelties in terms of gameplay, they will not be able to compare with the bets that are currently successful and have a new battle scenario: smartphone screens.
Although the PC with its keyboard and mouse is always a good place to enjoy a long and hard RTS, the truth is that many of these players have been tied to their cellphones for a long time,
Without wanting to expand further, it honors Microsoft that it remembers old titles who gave him fame when the Xbox didn’t exist yet. The age of mythology was the heir of age of empires and contemporary of the first American console but, believe us, the launch of this game will end like the others alarm clocks from the giant of Redmond: passing without pain or glory and making us wonder if they could not have invested so much effort in something more productive and current.