Xbox Games Showcase Deep Dives | Ara: History Untold & Age of Mythology: Retold

ANNOUNCER: Ratings for games in this podcast are pending.

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MALIK: All right, welcome back to the official Xbox Podcast, the only podcast coming to you from inside Xbox. And our week of Xbox showcase themed podcasts continue. If you've missed one from earlier in the week, you know where to go. Check out youtube.com/xbox, Spotify, or wherever you may download your podcasts. And this is a special one, because in 2024 there can be no doubt that Xbox is the home for strategy games. Real-time, turn-based, we have you covered across the board. And today, we have a double feature that fans of strategy will not want to miss. In a few minutes, we'll be diving deeper into age of mythology retold.

But first, we kick it off with Ara, History Untold. And the team has brought a ton of news and new gameplay with them that will answer some of the questions you may have been wondering. But before we get into it, I have my expert cohost because I am not an expert in strategy games. It's the purpose of this segment. It's Jenn Panattoni. Jenn, how are you doing today?

JENN PANATTONI: Living the dream. How are you? I just-- I love strategy games. I don't know about expert. I just like to have fun.

MALIK: Well, I was going to ask for your credentials.

JENN PANATTONI: My credentials?

MALIK: Let's just say-- what was-- what's your past with strategy games?

JENN PANATTONI: So it really depends. Obviously, I got to play Ara, History Untold this weekend. Loved it. I'm so excited to dig into this. I can't-- I can't even, as they say.

MALIK: [CHUCKLING] As the kids say.

JENN PANATTONI: As the kids say. I love XCOM 2. Have you ever played XCOM 2?

MALIK: No.

JENN PANATTONI: Advent is a really hard to defend against. You save Earth from Advent. Love that game. I constantly go back to that game. There's just a lot of different strategy games I play, but those are probably my two main favorites-- well, two main favorites. Obviously, Ara is going to be one. As soon as I saw this game, I was like, I need to play this right now.

MALIK: Well, let's just jump into it, because it sounds like you're qualified. Joining us here from Ara team, it is Marc and Brian. Marc and Brian, thank you for joining us. Now, can you tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do on Ara?

MARC MEYER: My name is Marc Meyer. I'm the president of Oxide Games. I'm a programmer and product owner of Ara.

BRIAN STONE: And hey, I'm Brian Stone. I am the head of Ara for Xbox Game Studios.

MALIK: Yeah, so super excited for the game. For those who may not have seen it or maybe those who need a quick refresher, can you tell us a little bit-- top-level, what is Ara, History Untold?

BRIAN STONE: Yeah, so Ara, you know, at its core is a classic turn-based historical grand strategy game that spans the scope of human history from ancient times all the way up to the modern era and beyond. But it's also a game that the team, with Marc, has been really kind of pouring a lot of modern elements into. They've made the look of the game something completely unique that you've never seen before and added a ton of depth that we've just never seen in a game like this before. And we've brought a lot of it to show today.

MARC MEYER: We really wanted to make the game different and unique, and we wanted to look at strategy games as they stood and see what we could change, where we could shake it up, how we could improve on these venerated old games.

MALIK: Yeah, it's all about breaking new ground, which it sounds like you all are doing in abundance.

JENN PANATTONI: Oh, yeah. So we know Ara was featured back in Developer Direct back in January, but it's been relatively quiet since then. What's the team been up to?

MARC MEYER: The team's been working very hard. We've been scouring the game from top to bottom, finding every place we can to make improvements, polish, tweak, improve, better and better and better.

BRIAN STONE: Yeah, and also it goes without saying, we've been playing the game a lot. I think-- I mean, you obviously played a bunch this weekend. I love to share that this is a game that we've partnered with to really make for fans. In fact, people have been playing this game since when we ran first tactical alpha on--

MARC MEYER: September '22?

BRIAN STONE: --September of 2022. People have been playing the game since then. We've been taking feedback all along. And even right now, we're right in the middle of our third technical alpha. Thousands of people are playing the game right now.

MALIK: And that is so cool. And I always like to talk about this, because I always see devs' eyes light up when they talk about their connection to the community. What is it like developing a game alongside the community-- like you said, getting that feedback? How integral is that to making a game?

BRIAN STONE: Well, I think you have to have that in a game like this. The game is sort of like so deep, so genuinely and interestingly complex that the balance isn't something that one team can do all on their own. You have to have a large community playing it and giving you feedback for long lengths of time, like throughout development, to get that balance.

MARC MEYER: Yeah, you really want to hear what everyone has to say about it, because everyone's going to have a different experience. And you want to hear what worked, what didn't for everybody.

MALIK: Yeah, well, speaking of that experience, let's waste no more time. I hear you brought gameplay with you, so let's take a look at some of this gameplay. And already on this first frame, I'm seeing a lot. Walk us through it.

MARC MEYER: So this is just-- this is--

JENN PANATTONI: Stunning is what it is.

MALIK: I mean, it's--

JENN PANATTONI: It's stunning.

MALIK: --literally kind of breathtaking. Like, this shot--

JENN PANATTONI: --this is--

MARC MEYER: This is my favorite one that we've got today. It's just gorgeous. This is not a cinematic. This is in-game engine footage generated maps. So we-- one of the places that we changed things up is we don't have regular regions. We're not grid-based, we're not tile-based, we're not hex-based. We have irregular regions that are generated to represent the entire planet.

JENN PANATTONI: When you've got different biomes-- go back a second-- look at the rain. Just look at the detail on that rain. This is a strategy game.

MARC MEYER: Yes, it is. And this is a--

JENN PANATTONI: You've put so much detail and thought into-- I mean, you can see the different foliage on the trees. You can see these boulders, how they all differ. They're all unique. It doesn't look like a lot of copy and paste in the development at all. This is all unique.

MARC MEYER: Yeah, this is all randomly generated. Every time you build a new game, every time you play again, you will get a different world. It's going to generate for you. It's going to be full of all these different biomes. I don't even know how we did this. All the snow on the trees because that's where trees are and where snow is. And so you end up with something like this.

JENN PANATTONI: And you refer to this as the living world.

MARC MEYER: Correct. It's the living world. It's full of all types of interesting things we want the players to notice and to see.

JENN PANATTONI: Look at the magma. The magma, it's amazing.

MARC MEYER: And it's a resource that's--

JENN PANATTONI: Go on.

MARC MEYER: --part of the game. That's something that you will harvest and get things from. Like here's copper. And you can see you will found your nation here, and you'll use that resource to improve the lives of your people and your citizens.

MALIK: Look at this. Oh, we got the Cougars. Can they eat people?

BRIAN STONE: Yeah, the wild animals are dangerous. You have to clear them out before you can build in areas.

JENN PANATTONI: So be careful. They're not-- if it's not-- there's the joke, "if it's cold outside, let them in." Not with the cougars, right?

MARC MEYER: Correct. Not the Cougars.

MALIK: Unless I want them to take out my citizens. We'll see. I'll make a game-time decision on that one. But even looking at this, I want to take a step back because there may be people like me who haven't jumped into strategy games, but are really interested in Ara and looking to it.

So let's take a step back. Can you tell us a little bit about the game flows? Where do you start, and what does winning look like? Is there a winning in Ara?

BRIAN STONE: Yeah, absolutely. So we start with the basics. So when the game starts, you've got this generated, as we saw, beautiful, natural, pristine world untouched. And the player will start just with their first small village-- a single village hall, some villagers that are doing like just gathering from the natural environment, and a scout to go explore the world with. That's all, you start with.

From there, you're kind of first decision is, what do I start kind of improving, what do I start building? How do I work to manage and improve the lives of my citizens who are in this burgeoning little village? And then also what I do with my scout, and how do I go out and explore the world?

And from there, turn by turn, by turn, you move from this one tiny little village to a megalopolis spanning continents, multiple cities competing with other nations, competing with other players. And then guess what winning looks like? Ultimately, the goal of this game is through your own creativity, your own inspiration to be the most prestigious nation on Earth. And you can do that across a lot of different types of gameplay.

You can pursue military conquest, you can pursue religious victories, you can pursue industry and just be a captain of industry. You can expand and explore the world and be kind of a beacon for other nations through prestige. You can explore culture and masterpieces. There's almost a kind of unbounded set of ways to go and invest in what you're building from that first little village.

MARC MEYER: Yeah, so it's almost like a mirror of what civilization has been. I always think about we all started with-- there's rock, sticks and fire. And we look at us. We're sitting in a podcast room. How did this come to be in the evolution? So in the game, we're going to see that evolution in how players take the beginnings and create, like you said, this huge city.

BRIAN STONE: Absolutely. So think about it's the foundations of a classic historical strategy game like Civ. In fact, this is part of the team that built Civ 5. So it's got that bones. But from there, think about that mapped onto like a simulation and a living world simulation that has the depth of like your favorite kind of deep paradox game or something. Moosh those two together, and you've got something really special.

JENN PANATTONI: Sign me up. Sign me up. So what are you both most excited for players to see in Ara?

MARC MEYER: So what I really want people to see are these generated worlds, this beautiful planet that we can make for them with these sprawling mountains, and trees, and places where they can build their world. They can build their nation, they can improve it. They can build improvements, they can wall off their cities and protect themselves.

MALIK: See these plains here? That is-- I'm looking forward to that.

JENN PANATTONI: But even-- yeah, you love FlightSim.

MALIK: I do. I do.

JENN PANATTONI: But even then, like, you have these buildings here, you have walls, you have a portion of your city that's heavily industrial. But when you zoomed out for a second, there were still farms, there were still agriculture.

MARC MEYER: You've gotta feed people.

JENN PANATTONI: Exactly. You don't have to completely go-- I don't know if there are hydroponics, and you put everything in warehouses, but having that the variance in building walls, farms, all that goodness, it's amazing to see how diverse this is.

MARC MEYER: Yeah, as your nation grows and as you gather people, you'll gain claims that'll let you take over pieces of land, and grow your empire, and find new places to build, and new resources to exploit. And so it's all this self-fulfilling system, where you grow so that you can grow more, and you can get more land, and you can get more resources. And then you take those resources and you refine them through our crafting system to produce amenities that will improve the quality of life of your people.

JENN PANATTONI: And I want to come to crafting in a second, but Brian, what are you most excited for players to experience and discover?

BRIAN STONE: Well, I think one of the things that I find really cool about the game is that it is, at its core, about making the lives of your citizens better. It's kind of core on every city that you're managing that you have this quality of life stat across multiple kind of various angles. And depending on how healthy, or happy, or educated-- how much they feel secure of all your citizens, those kind of feed into buffing all of the other stats that you're managing. And because of the way the world is simulated, you don't just see that on a bit of UI. You can also zoom right down into the world and see those kind of happy citizens living out their lives.

MALIK: Yeah, you saw the kids playing in the playground and everything. And I imagine like a happy citizen base, like you said, will help your city.

BRIAN STONE: And this is another image that I just adore, if we can pause on this for a second. It's just beautiful. You can see this built up city, but you've also got the farmlands that you need and just a sprawling empire.

JENN PANATTONI: Well, it also tells a story, because I think you have an old medieval or kind of early city that's within the walled city. And then as you advance, so you've got the larger, bigger city with the skyscrapers out there. You can actually see how that person built their civilization. So one thing-- going back to the basics for a second and to the very beginning, every nation starts with a leader, and you have a very interesting lineup of leaders. Tell us more about that.

BRIAN STONE: That's true. So we've got 36 leaders--

JENN PANATTONI: 36? Wow.

BRIAN STONE: --or maybe more. We'll share more later, but start with 36 leaders. And a very kind of diverse cast of leaders. It's kind of-- one of the interesting things about the game is that, because there's so many different ways to play through it, we wanted to make sure that there were leaders for every play style. And you'll see in the examples here that every leader has kind of a collection of different types of traits that define who they are that's roughly historically accurate in terms of how they existed in the world in their time.

But then also every leader has what we just call a hero trait, which is a-- we've kind of really pushed pretty far in this game to be strongly differentiating. So the kind of advantages, if you're a kind of a warlike leader with Shaka, the advantages and the buffs that you get towards your military are going to be quite dramatic and allow you to really lean into that play style. And even just of the leaders that we've shown here, we've got Otto Von Bismarck, who's like a captain of industry. We've got Yah here, who is great at building triumphs and production. We've got leaders that lean into the religious play and everything in between.

MARC MEYER: So each of the leaders has this unique hero trait, like Brian said, that sets them apart from everyone else. But they've also got these set of traits that they share with each other, and they kind of dictate a little bit of the underlying pieces of their personality. And they dictate how they're going to get along with each other or not, or how well they're going to work together or not. And it lets us have just a huge variety in the different leaders that we offer, and make it so that playing each one of them is very different.

BRIAN STONE: It also plays into the diplomacy, which I find really fascinating, because depending on what traits you share or don't share with other nations, you're more predisposed to be allies, sort of like friends or enemies with them. And it plays out in a really interesting way in that, I might have a negative trait that feels like it's-- it might be a particularly grumpy leader. But if I run into another nation or another leader in the world that shares that trait with me, well, then we're going to get along.

JENN PANATTONI: Buddies. [CHUCKLING]

MALIK: Ooh. I'm not a grumpy guy in real life, but I kind of want to be a grumpy leader. Not going to lie. Just to make everybody mad at me.

BRIAN STONE: The grumpy coalition.

JENN PANATTONI: You can-- that's kind of the beauty of it. You can be who you want to be.

MARC MEYER: Yeah, be who you want to be, yeah.

MALIK: But earlier, we talked a little bit about what players experience is going to be moment to moment. But I also hear that you don't have to play the game alone. There is multiplayer in this game. Can you tell us a bit about what that looks like?

BRIAN STONE: Exactly right. So there is multiplayer in this game. It's fully realized in that however many nations you can play with in a single player game, you can mix in as many other real human players as you want. And there's two things in particular that we're actually really excited about with Ara. One is that the team at Oxide invested a lot from day one into this concept of simultaneous turns, like true simultaneous turns.

MARC MEYER: So the way that works is you submit your actions, and everyone else in the world submits their actions at the same time. And when they all get resolved together, it's not a situation where if you go first, you get to get the claim-- the person who goes second doesn't get to get the claim. In this model, everyone goes at exactly the same time. So in multiplayer, you really have a fair chance at everything.

BRIAN STONE: It also just speeds up the gameplay a lot. So when you're playing with-- imagine you're playing with-- I don't know-- 30 other real people. In a round Robin game, you take your turn, then you got to wait for 29 other people to take their turn. Well, obviously that doesn't really work. Ara solves that because everybody's taking their turn at the same time. Then it resolves, and then everybody takes their turn again.

So you just get this real fluidity to gameplay that you don't typically see in a turn-based game. And then on top of that, we've built all of that turn processing in the Azure cloud, which means that it's all there, all running all the time. So anybody in any game can hot join, in/out.

You can run games at any pace you want. If you want to play a game like one turn a day or one turn every 30 seconds, it doesn't matter. You can do that. You don't need to worry about who's hosting. It's got almost unlimited flexibility in terms of how you play.

MARC MEYER: We really wanted to remove all the barriers for multiplayer. It can be really hard to get a game like this together with a bunch of friends and play at the same time all the time. But with Ara, we don't have to do that. You can jump in and out of as many games as you want. You can take your turn when you have time and wait until it gets submitted.

If your friend decides he doesn't want to play anymore, an AI can come in and take over for him. It doesn't mean the end of your entire world. If you're playing online and you don't want to do that, you can stop. And you don't have to worry about destroying the game for everyone else who's playing.

MALIK: Yeah, all about pushing those boundaries. I love how you all are trying new things. I feel like simultaneous turns more mimics how it is in real life. You're not necessarily waiting for another person to make a move. You're all working together and trying to figure out what your friends are going to do. So I love that.

JENN PANATTONI: Yeah, absolutely. I actually do want to talk about this portion right here for a second. So I see I see amenities. There's a lot on this page, actually. So you have a lot from the living world. You can obviously see it's not standard.

It's very different. It's been generated uniquely. And you have a bunch of different things on the site. We talked about crafting earlier, but I really do want to talk about that, because I think that's a big differentiator. Full disclosure, it took me 30-45 minutes before I made my first move playing this game, because I wanted to read and understand everything.

MALIK: That's a perfect strategy game.

BRIAN STONE: That's what you want-- that's what you want your players doing, thinking about every single move that they make.

MARC MEYER: Yeah, so the way we've set it up, like in many 4X strategy games, you are harvesting resources from the world. You are putting out your resource harvesters, your farms, and your mines and your logging camps to get the natural bounty of the world.

And you get those as natural resources, as raw resources, and there's different things you can do with them. You can build your improvements and things like that. But some of the more sophisticated resources can be crafted. They can go through a crafting system to build a new item that will then feed into something else.

So you can harvest wheat from the map, and then you can take that and go through a bakery and turn that into bread. And you can give that bread to your people, which makes them healthier and happier and raises their quality of life. So we've tried to find as many ways as we can to push these things together in historically accurate ways to combine them together and let you build new amenities.

BRIAN STONE: Here, you get a sense of that. So you've got a blacksmith crafting metal ingots, one building making metal ingots. Really simple. But if you think about the kind of scope of the supply chain that that makes possible, it means that everything that you're harvesting can be turned into almost anything else.

You have complete flexibility yourself over how you want to set up that kind of flow of goods through harvesting, through production, through consumption. And all the various ways that you can consume it-- if you look at the screen as well-- is you can apply all of that to as amenities to your city. You can apply it as buffs to the building, so it's almost like feeds itself.

And you can apply it as buffs to other kind of units and strategies in the game. I think the key thing also-- just to make note-- is that you learn a little bit about history as you do this as well. So all of the amenities are kind of designed around moments in history, where new goods or new resources became available in ways that transformed how people lived in that time.

So what was the moment in history where, like, cured meat became available, or when the first piano was made on the culture side, or-- and so we've gone and done the research and peppered that in to when these things become available in the game. And you have this big kind of menu of things to pick from that teach you a little bit about history, but also give you this kind of deep flexibility in terms of how you're going to run your civilization.

JENN PANATTONI: So I'm going to ask, what's your why? Why was it important to you all to make a game-- a grand strategy game like this, where you have historically accurate elements like that? What was the driving force behind that for both of you?

MARC MEYER: Oh, I mean, we just wanted to show it to people. I mean, we want to model the world. It's so complex and so sophisticated. History is so huge. We wanted to be able to show that to people and build a really sophisticated toy for everyone to play with.

We put a lot of effort into making it as interesting and sophisticated as we could, but at the same time, we really wanted it to be beautiful. It's this huge whirling, spinning, singing, dancing, amazing piece of technology that is just gorgeous to look at for me.

MALIK: And it worked. It just works just based off of this. It's just all of those elements, like you said, just work together so nicely.

JENN PANATTONI: Absolutely. I mean, it's been such a great year for strategy gamers with the release of Millennia, Manor Lords, an upcoming release of Age of Mythology. So what other games are you both playing right now, and what are you loving about them. I want to make sure that-- I want-- that's the most important part for me. I want the game, I want the why.

MALIK: So I'm getting back into Rimworld right now which is just--

JENN PANATTONI: Yes, yes!

MALIK: --every six months or so, it just sucks me up for a whole month, and I can think about nothing but Rimworld. And it's just so much fun to watch the stories play out and what things happen that you just can't predict.

BRIAN STONE: Yeah, I mean, for me, I said it before, I'm a bit of a fan of the Paradox games. They just have a richness and depth to the simulation that I love. And yet I'm also a fan of the games that Marc has made in the past that just have this really approachable deep historical play. And the idea of blending those two has been a really cool idea.

For me, to answer your question directly, I play a lot of Victoria, which is this-- Victoria 3 specifically. It's this kind of deep inspection of a specific moment in history, which is a toy to play with in its own right. And I think we're approaching something like that complexity, but for like 6,000 BC to the future.

MARC MEYER: Video games are art, right? And I love hearing devs talk about the art that their peers make. And the fact that you all are making games that you play and you love, it shows through in the game. And as we're looking at this, as you're talking about it, that is the best part.

But now, I have to ask the tough questions. Because at the Developer Direct, you all said coming later this year in the fall. But I'm going to press for a release date. Do you all have any news to announce?

BRIAN STONE: Coming later this year, we're going to make good on that promise. So, yes, I can tell you today, Ara, History Untold is launching on September 24, 2024. It's launching on Steam and PC Game Pass, coming exclusively to PC. And I strongly recommend that you wish list it today on Steam so you're there to follow us to get all the news. We're going to be talking about it a lot more over the summer. But yep, coming September 24th, 2024.

MALIK: There we go. We got a date.

JENN PANATTONI: We got it. It's on my calendar.

MALIK: You're welcome, everybody. I got the date. That was me. That was--

JENN PANATTONI: He did it.

MALIK: --that was all me. Now, if fans want to, I guess, get themselves accustomed to the game or in the zone for the game a little bit, I hear that there's-- the soundtrack is going to be on spotify, right? So they can jump in and listen to it.

BRIAN STONE: Absolutely. There's a preview of the soundtrack on Spotify right now. We're actually really proud of the soundtrack. This is all original music, all composed just for Ara, History Untold. It's great. We're getting really good feedback on it. Yeah, go listen to a little preview right now.

MALIK: There we go. There we go. Well, Marc and Brian, thank you all so much for stopping by. I'm reluctant to tell you that your turn is over.

MARC MEYER: Oh, no.

MALIK: I did not write that.

[LAUGHTER]

It was just in the teleprompter. But again, thank you for stopping by and talking about the game. And September 24 on PC. Wishlist it now. Thank you so much for joining us, and we'll check in with you again before launch. But of course, for now, let's roll into the second half of our double feature. This is Age of Mythology, Retold.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

ANNOUNCER: We return to you now as the gods of mankind.

MALIK: All right, let us continue our super special strategy episode, now with Age of Mythology, Retold.

JENN PANATTONI: And as you can see, we have had a bit of a wardrobe change. Here's a sneak peek behind the scenes here. We don't film these interviews on this thing.

MALIK: Yeah, we tried to, but I was being too much of a diva and I needed rest.

JENN PANATTONI: He really was.

MALIK: Yeah, but we are joined by some guests who are new guests here today. We have Earnest and Emma. How are you two doing from the World's Edge team?

EMMA BRIDLE: Good. Thank you for having us.

EARNEST YUEN: Thank you.

MALIK: Thanks for being here. For people who are watching for the first time, tell us what you do, who you are, all that good stuff.

EMMA BRIDLE: Sure. Hi, I'm Emma Bridle. I'm director of player engagement at World's Edge, which basically means I'm thinking about all the ways that we're building relationships with our players, whether that's community, or customer support, or in-game features or esports. Our community have been with us a long time. We're going on 27 years as a franchise. They're very, very important to us. They're the heartbeat of what we do. And so I'm just constantly thinking about how we build those relationships, keep those relationships good, and keep them with us as we move forward into the future.

MALIK: I love that. Earnest?

EARNEST YUEN: And I'm Earnest Yuen. I'm senior director of production at World's Edge. What that really means is I get to work with all the different production teams to build the games together. Yes, best job ever. It is amazing. And the running joke in our team is, I've been around for more than a quarter century. In fact, the original Age of Empires 1 program manager is the person who hired me into the game industry.

MALIK: Well, they're proud of you.

JENN PANATTONI: So I'm going to dive right in, because I'm super excited. So you've brought some exclusive, never before seen footage. But before we get into that, for people who might not be familiar with Age of Mythology, tell us about Retold.

EMMA BRIDLE: So we're-- I'm going to strip it back for Malik and anyone else who is new to strategy because we want to make them comfortable.

MALIK: All ears.

- So Age of Mythology, Retold is a real-time strategy game, and it's set in the world of mythology, where you've got humans living alongside monsters, living alongside gods. So you want to pick a pantheon. And in the base game, we've got the Norse, the Atlanteans, the Greeks and the Egyptians.

You'll pick gods, goddesses, deities that you want to pay tribute to, and they'll bless you with their powers as you build up your civilization and work towards battling to victory. So it's this fantastical, chaotic, magical world that you get to control and you get to steer. And it's really, really exciting. So--

MALIK: Yeah, so let's talk a little bit about showcase. In the trailer showcase, what-- can you recap for us what we saw, and why should Age of Mythology fans be excited?

EARNEST YUEN: So we showed the trailer, which we are super proud of. And this is the very first time we get to show in-game footage of the Age of Mythology, Retold. And yep, finally, people get to see what the game looks like in motion. So very, very happy to be able to show that to the world.

And we have also announced that, yep, it is not that far off. Our launch date is September 4th. Coming up soon, so very, very happy about that as well. And pre-orders are now available, so--

MALIK: Oh, so get your preorders in.

MALIK: What are y'all waiting for?

EMMA BRIDLE: Yeah, and this is the first title that, for us, we're launching day one PC and Xbox. So we brought H2 and H4 to console, but we brought them post the PC. This is day one, both platforms. Find it in Game Pass, find it on console, find it on PC, and everyone can play together from day one.

JENN PANATTONI: That's amazing. I'm so excited. It's really exciting.

MALIK: Yeah, I feel like console fans have always been-- because we have the restrictions of the controller, so to speak. You all did a great job with Age of Empires, but it's always been a thing-- the input of a controller is not as easy for those games as a keyboard and mouse, for example.

EARNEST YUEN: We basically brought Age of Empires 2 and Age of Empires 4 to the console. So honestly, they took a lot of work to get it to the place that-- and I'm very, very happy to see that our fans felt that we were successfully being able to bring it out here. It's working really well on console. And we are now taking all those learnings and applying them to both the PC and the Xbox version of Age of Mythology, Retold.

So for example, in the console version, one of the innovations that we did is what we call the villager priority system. So what that does is-- so once-- you can actually set what the villagers do. So they can actually go take care of some of those tasks for you. So for example, you want some of them to go get a food, some of them to go get a wood. So they will go do that for you so you can concentrate on building units to go battle, et cetera.

So that really takes the level of complexity down. So to actually make it-- but while-- you are still in control, because strategically, you are still making the decisions on how you actually want those villagers to actually be applied to different resources. But you get to control it in a way that's much easier, simpler for you. The other, for example, similar thing is what we call the site menu system.

So you see wood since we talk about getting villagers to get the wood. So intuitively, why do you need to go through, pick a villager, and then build house, and do those-- like you say, it takes an hour to learn sometimes. What you can now do is you see wood. Just click on it, and then say like, hey, I want someone here to collect this wood. And then the villager will actually come, build a camp, and actually collect those. Just makes it way, way smoother and easier, especially to help a lot of new peoples coming to enjoy RTS with us.

EMMA BRIDLE: And it comes with some great presets as well. So if you--

JENN PANATTONI: That's amazing.

EMMA BRIDLE: Your priorities are going to be different in the first age of the game as you're establishing your economy. And you can just be like, I want the age one preset. Go ahead, build my economy whilst I go--

JENN PANATTONI: Oh, my god, that's so nice.

EMMA BRIDLE: Yeah. And again, if you're a pro player and you don't need that, you don't have to use it. But the system is there to help you get started.

JENN PANATTONI: Oh, that is so handy, because sometimes resource management takes so, so long to set up. And then I don't know if it's just me, but I will sit there and sometimes watch. I'm like, did I do it right, am I getting the right stuff? That's magic. That is absolute magic.

MALIK: And even as someone newer to strategy games, I do feel like one of the things that I noticed when you brought Age of Empires to console was this overwhelming-- I don't want to say shock, but overwhelming positivity around what-- the work that you all did to adapt it to a controller. So just kudos to the team on that one once more, because that is impressive, and that helps someone like me who's going to be on a controller. I'm, I'm going to be that guy.

EMMA BRIDLE: I'm excited. That's awesome.

MALIK: But I hear you all brought some gameplay for us, which I'm excited to jump in so you all can explain to players and, obviously, fans of the series what we're experiencing here. So let's take a look at this, and let's talk through it.

NARRATOR: Antyen and his men have been taken to the prison. Your allies recommend a diversion so you can slip in and rescue him.

EARNEST YUEN: So yeah, this is a campaign mission. So I think this is an exclusive first look on actual mission from the campaign.

MALIK: Exclusive.

EARNEST YUEN: So this is great.

MALIK: So tell us what we're seeing here.

EARNEST YUEN: Yep, this is from the [INAUDIBLE] campaign and the mission. And this is-- in this particular one, you played as the Egyptian heroine. And you go around the level and try to go to different temples and collect new additional mythological units for your army. Just continue to build it up, and then I like to play for the level.

It's one of my favorite levels ever. It is super fun. You really get to showcase all the different mythological units. As you can see, there are Amara there, and then-- which is the hero that you are playing as. And then there are-- one of my favorite units in the game is called petsuchos. I can't say that word properly. So internally, we have been joking around and just call it the laser croc.

MALIK: Laser croc.

EARNEST YUEN: And they get the power of the sun.

EMMA BRIDLE: Yeah, it's a bejeweled crocodile with a lens mounted on its back that will focus the rays into-- it basically creates just a laser beam.

JENN PANATTONI: So I was really excited about this game already, and I was already going to--

EARNEST YUEN: And then you saw that.

JENN PANATTONI: --and then I heard laser croc, and then I-- yeah, I'm in. Sign me up. Doing it.

EARNEST YUEN: This game is just crazy amazing. Just imagine, how many games are there that you get to use all these different Greek gods versus Egyptians, different mythological units. Like here on screen, we have the scarabs, and they are very, very good. There are giant scarabs. These are-- like, they are kaiju, scarabs. Very good at attacking buildings. They are really good. And there's the lasers right there.

JENN PANATTONI: So this is an army of laser crocs. Oh, they're so cool!

MALIK: And scarabs.

EARNEST YUEN: Giant scarabs.

JENN PANATTONI: And they're just wrecking.

EARNEST YUEN: Yes, because the way that the game is played-- so since we talk about strategy games, it's the rock, paper, scissors system. So very often, the mythological units are very good against human units. But then you have the hero units. The hero units are especially good against the mythological unit.

So there's a triangle going on that's super fun and really makes you, as the player, pick different strategic decisions as you play through the levels. It's really cool because you can actually keep on playing. It's kind of like 3D chess.

MALIK: It's like 3D chess. I love that.

EARNEST YUEN: And I want to give props to our programmers team as well. So as you see, the game looks way better. We now support ray tracing. We have soft shadows that we are now supporting now, which is fantastic. We have new particle system. That's how you get a lot of new effects in the game. So they did an amazing job.

EMMA BRIDLE: Yeah, and Jenn was saying it's beautiful. It is beautiful. And like you can see the distinct architecture for each pantheon and each culture, different biomes.

If you've seen any of the screenshots that we've put out so far, you know you've got snow when you play as the Norse. And it just looks so good. And then as I said, it's, it's a little disappointing then when you destroy it. But there's some beauty in that, but it's also fun.

MALIK: I think it looks great.

JENN PANATTONI: It just means you have to go back and do it again.

EMMA BRIDLE: Yeah. Oh, no! Twist my arm some more. [CHUCKLING]

MALIK: For someone like me-- and I asked this to the Ara team, what do you-- what would you consider winning? As someone who's jumping into this game and is like, what's my objective, how do you-- yeah, how do you all view winning in this game?

EARNEST YUEN: So there's definitely many different ways you can play the game. So for example, we have a campaign-- we have multiple campaigns. Get together-- I believe there are 50 missions.

EMMA BRIDLE: 50 missions.

EARNEST YUEN: Yeah, in the game.

EMMA BRIDLE: 5-0.

EARNEST YUEN: They really keep you busy. But most people, once you start playing, what they really enjoy is what we call the skirmish mode. So you--

EMMA BRIDLE: Versus the AI.

EARNEST YUEN: --yeah, versus AI or co-op with your friends against the AI, which is super popular. 2v2 is very, very popular way to play the game. So what you do is you take a few villagers, you start with a town center, and you just build. You go through the different ages, you upgrade.

Each time you upgrade different ages, you get to pick different new power that you can actually have, and then continue to build your army. And hopefully, at the end, when you battle, you come out on top. If not, then you still have a good time. So it's really great.

EMMA BRIDLE: You can try again. And you want to play with players around the world-- go for multiplayer.

EARNEST YUEN: Or you can play against the computer locally.

EMMA BRIDLE: Yeah, so lots of--

MALIK: Lots of choice. That's awesome. To build off that question, why is now the best time to jump into the game for fans?

EMMA BRIDLE: We know that real-time strategy, as a genre, has quite a steep learning curve. So we've really designed this to be the most accessible game that we've done so far in terms of welcoming people in, showing them the ropes, helping them build up their skills, making them feel comfortable. So over the last few years, we've released our original Age of Empires titles in definitive editions, Age of Empires 4. And we've learned along the way what helps players with those-- learn those skills and refine those. And so we've brought systems and features from those other games and brought them to Retold, really bringing it together so that new players can enjoy this as well as folks who've played it already.

JENN PANATTONI: That focus on approachability is so, so important, because you're right. Sometimes when you start a new strategy game, it can take you 30 minutes to even look at all the different units that you can create. I mean, if you've got, you know, gods and pantheons, you have to learn and figure out what are the advantages that each one's unique, each one's different. So I love that you've taken all of the learnings over the last-- all the games that you've made and put them into this. That's incredibly exciting.

EMMA BRIDLE: We've been building up our audience. I mean, Age of Empires has been a franchise more than 25 years. We've got 50 million players all over the world, some who've been with us since the beginning and some who are relatively new. And we've been learning along the way. And those definitive editions, Age of Empires 4, really helped us learn what does and doesn't work and bring all that good learning into Age of Mythology, Retold.

And we think that the theme is really inviting as well. Like, who didn't have a geeky mythology phase when they were growing up? Was that just me, where you're really into the Greek gods? Is that just me?

MALIK: I'm sure it's not just you. There's no way. There's no way.

EMMA BRIDLE: So the original game, actually-- so Age of Mythology, the original, was launched in 2002. And I mean, think back to where you were in 2002 and the machines you were playing on. Picture those CRT monitors at the internet cafe or in your teenage bedroom. And so we've got those fans of the original, and people are hungry for it. And we're excited to finally be on the road to them getting to play.

JENN PANATTONI: I will say, your fan base is so passionate, because I wanted to do a bunch of research before this weekend. And so there was, I think, an hour long or 45-minute video of someone analyzing screenshots and just looking at, this is this character, I think this is this. And the excitement, and the enthusiasm and the passion-- like, I was excited before, and now I'm even more excited because seeing how the fans have reacted to what you've shown them so far and what they're going to react to today.

EMMA BRIDLE: They're the beating heart of the franchise. That's why we've been going for 27 years this year. The fans have kept the franchise going. And we've brought them on side with us. We have a player council who've been helping to build Retold with us who are fans of the original game, who know what it should feel like, and look like, and sound like, and play like.

And we still want that feeling of the original as we bring Retold to life. And they've been helping us shape that, telling us what works and telling us what doesn't, and how we can make it better. So they're very much a part of the team.

EARNEST YUEN: Yep. I will say, for World's Edge, for all our titles, our fans that have been-- have been with us for so long now. They know we really do care about the community a lot. I've now met fans that talk about, oh, I'm now teaching my kids how to play this game. And so this is now cross-generational. So it is amazing.

EMMA BRIDLE: Yeah, parents playing with kids. During lockdown, we had people homeschooling history with Age of Empires games.

JENN PANATTONI: No way!

EMMA BRIDLE: So that was cool. And people who've gone in and become history teachers because they learned history from the games, so we are very lucky to do what we do. And we are well aware that we're in a very wonderful position. We're very grateful.

MALIK: I hate to sound like a broken record, but I feel like all week, we've been hearing from developers who, again, that connection with the community is super important. So I won't belabor it any more, but it is great to hear that fans and players around the world can connect.

EMMA BRIDLE: You can keep mentioning it.

MALIK: Yeah, there you go. Exactly. Give a shout out to the players.

EMMA BRIDLE: That's the heartbeat of what we do.

JENN PANATTONI: Yeah. So one thing I've always had a question on-- and I'm glad that you two are here to clear this up for me. So how does a Retold title like this differ from something like a definitive edition title? What is the specific difference?

EMMA BRIDLE: Good question.

EARNEST YUEN: So I work on all the definitive editions so far, so I can definitely say that the goal for the definitive edition is like definitive edition. We try to build the awesome game that people remembered so that they are updated with all new graphics, all new way of playing the game to make sure that you really get to play the game that's in your head. That's exactly how you remembered it, but not exactly how it really was. But that is the game that we want to build.

But for Retold, we do everything that we have been doing for definitive editions, but we go beyond that. We are actually going to add new mechanics, new features in the game. So it's not just about preservation. We are going to add new ideas and new game to really-- because I think we are lucky enough that at 2024, we finally have hardware that can do this concept really the justice it deserved. So it is fantastic. We get to add some new features that people will really like. So yeah, going beyond all those.

MALIK: I do want to go back to what you said a little bit now on the idea of games looking now like we thought they looked back then, because that is something that I have just discovered so recently. I've been like, wow, to me, on the CRT TV, this looked amazing. And then you go back and you play, and you're like, oh--

EMMA BRIDLE: You play, and you go, oh--

MALIK: Yikes. That's not quite what it looked like. And so I hear you brought a few images to really showcase to players who are viewing this the difference and really that jump. So let's talk through those.

EMMA BRIDLE: Yeah, so the first one that we're going to show-- so this is a screenshot from a campaign mission from 2002. So again, envision it on that CRT monitor in your-- I don't know-- the PC room at your university.

EARNEST YUEN: 2002.

EMMA BRIDLE: Yeah, take yourself back to 2002, and this is what it looks like in Retold. So this is the same shot from the same mission. It's the first mission of the campaign, and you can see the difference.

MALIK: Yeah, the level of detail in the water-- obviously, the ripples in the water, and additional foliage, and trees, and just that added level of detail. So you all really went deep in.

EMMA BRIDLE: Oh, yeah. The art team-- basically, everything has been redone, reimagined, retold, if you will. I added a friendly Kraken.

JENN PANATTONI: Oh, is he shaking his hand? Like, I can't--

EMMA BRIDLE: He's friendly.

EARNEST YUEN: He's not quite friendly.

EMMA BRIDLE: Not quite.

JENN PANATTONI: It looks like they're shaking hands. Am I wrong? It feels like--

EMMA BRIDLE: It's nice that it looks that way. I wouldn't necessarily say-- you're going to have to play to find out. Maybe play to find out.

JENN PANATTONI: Well, his name is George now, and he looks really friendly to me. I'm open to being wrong. It kind of sounds--

EMMA BRIDLE: There we go. I mean, that's canon now, right?

JENN PANATTONI: This is my truth. This is my truth.

EMMA BRIDLE: Yeah, but we're going to take a look at some units as well. So this is an Atlantean Titan. So you can see on the left, 2002 looks great.

MALIK: Good, it looks great.

JENN PANATTONI: Yeah.

EMMA BRIDLE: Retold looks better.

MALIK: Greater.

EMMA BRIDLE: Yeah, greater. Yeah, I like that.

JENN PANATTONI: You can tell he's made out of magma.

EMMA BRIDLE: Yeah, he's had a glow up. A literal glowing with the particle effects. Yeah, so he looks great. We can take a look at some of the building destruction animation so you can see the original. And then coming through to Retold. Art director Melinda does a great-- she does an action and a sound for the original versus Retold.

And you can see, the building gets impacted and it just sort of drops. And then here, we've added the particle effect. It crumbles. You've got all the--

MALIK: The smoke.

EMMA BRIDLE: --the dust is it--

MALIK: Yeah, dust.

EMMA BRIDLE: And sometimes watching the buildings get destroyed is actually one of my favorite parts in our games, actually, because it's done so beautifully.

MALIK: You just destroyed beauty.

JENN PANATTONI: It's kind of cathartic, right?

EMMA BRIDLE: I mean, it's heartbreaking when you build this beautiful city and then--

EARNEST YUEN: It's heartbreaking if it's yours.

EMMA BRIDLE: It is. And there's still some beauty to it being destroyed, I guess.

JENN PANATTONI: It's a beautiful disaster. And then you get to build it, try it again.

EMMA BRIDLE: Yeah, definitely. So here, we've got Arkantos. So Arkantos is the hero of the campaign. And again, he's just looking a little bit more defined, a little bit-- he's got more detail to him. We can see him looking great.

He's ready to go and tackle a whole load of adventures. And then on the right, you've got Athena from the Greek pantheon. And so, yeah, again, 2002 versus Retold. You can just see the level of detail that we've been able to bring in Retold. We wanted to include some animals for Jenn.

JENN PANATTONI: Yay. And I'm loving this!

EMMA BRIDLE: So you want a Trojan Horse. Technically, animal-like. But then--

JENN PANATTONI: Animal-adjacent.

MALIK: Close enough.

EMMA BRIDLE: Animal adjacent. And then we've got our goat and our Joe who are just-- looking just fantastic in Retold.

JENN PANATTONI: I would pet all of those.

EMMA BRIDLE: Slight upgrade.

JENN PANATTONI: I would actually pet all of those.

EMMA BRIDLE: One thing our executive producer Tim loves is, as the animals eat, they get fatter.

JENN PANATTONI: No way! You actually built that in?

EMMA BRIDLE: Yeah.

JENN PANATTONI: That's amazing.

EARNEST YUEN: New feature in Retold.

MALIK: Dynamic animals.

JENN PANATTONI: I love that.

EMMA BRIDLE: So we've got the behemoth here. Again, just looking so good in Retold. And just--

JENN PANATTONI: The definition in those tusks and the fangs and all-- oh, my god. That's incredible.

EMMA BRIDLE: It's just looking so good. We've got Cerberus here. So if folks watched our new year new age event, we actually recreated him in AR. It's not quite true life scale. And then we've got the Sphinx as well. So we've got distinct visual upgrades, and it's just looking so, so good.

Again, you play it in 2002-- you think it looks great. You're on the technology of the time, but we've really, really sort of brought it up-to-date. 4K, ray tracing, all the models have been redone. We've added new details. It's just looking fantastic. So huge kudos. I had no part in this. Kudos to the art team. It's looking amazing.

EARNEST YUEN: And it's honestly also not just the art. The sound was upgraded.

[DRUMS]

[ANVIL]

[SIGHING]

[SHEEP BLEATING]

All the other features is upgraded as well. And I do want to give kudos to the ensemble who created the original game I'm a big fan of. And the game was already super fun. But honestly, the hardware at the time, there was limitation. It was the first 3D games that-- in the Age of Empire series. So people probably did not even remember that was 3D game was a big deal at the time.

And honestly, at the time, I felt like graphics will never get better than this. This is amazing. So all right-- And it was great, but there were some limitations. For example, one of the features that-- in the original game, we noticed that people, when they play against each other, you can actually-- most of the God powers, you can only use it once.

So what ends up happening is people are like, I'm going to save this for the right moment. But what end up happening is the game-- the match will actually end, and then they never actually get to use it. But those are the coolest things that you get to do in the game.

So what we are doing in Retold that's an example of new features we're adding is now God powers are rechargeable. So you can use it multiple times and strategically that change how you think about how to use those. And it is much more fun. In fact, we also added a new age called the wonder age.

And during the wonder age, you would actually be able to use the God powers for even cheaper costs, so at a discount. So you get to use it even more. So God powers everywhere.

EMMA BRIDLE: More meteor storms. Just more--

JENN PANATTONI: I'm into that. Yeah, I'm very into that.

EMMA BRIDLE: It's just chaos. Our lead designer, Kristen, calls it the bacchanal of chaos. It's just at the end of the game, everything's cheaper. You can just go for it and just unleash everything you've got. And it's just--

EARNEST YUEN: It's super fun.

JENN PANATTONI: That's such a good thing to do, honestly. Because I don't know about you, but any game I play where I can hold on to something and then be some important resource, I get to the end of the game. I'm like, I never used this ever. Or like when you know you're about to win, like in a strategy game like this, and you know-- you're like, I'm not losing past this point.

And then you do it just because you can. But it's not that it helps you at all. It wasn't a strategic thing. You're just like, I'm doing it now because I just want to make sure I do it.

EMMA BRIDLE: Yeah, so wonder age is just going to be really, really fun.

MALIK: More is more. I love that. I love that.

EMMA BRIDLE: More is more. Yeah.

JENN PANATTONI: That's awesome. So now, I know the game hasn't even come out yet, but did I hear that you might be able to talk about some of the future additional content and expansio? Please-- pretty please, I wanted--

EMMA BRIDLE: Well, as you said, pretty please--

JENN PANATTONI: Yes!

EMMA BRIDLE: Yeah, so there are going to be two expansions for Age of Mythology, Retold. And if you pre-order our premium edition, those will be included. So you'll get the game and the expansions. And we're not ready to talk about the second one yet, but we are going to tell you that the first expansion for Age of Mythology, Retold is going to be an all new Chinese pantheon.

And we're not ready to show it just yet, but we're going to tell you that it's amazing. It looks great. I think players are really going to love it. So that-- you can get hold of that as the first expansion.

MALIK: Well, that's exciting, because not only do players have September 4 to look forward to-- September 4, September 4, September 4--

EMMA BRIDLE: Pre-order.

MALIK: --but I think any player is always going to want more. And you all you really view that, I'm imagining, as really a starting point for the game and those expansions to continue to keep-- as the kids would say, keep them fed. I think that's what they say. I don't know.

EMMA BRIDLE: I'm sure that's right. I'm pretty sure that's right.

EARNEST YUEN: We'd like to-- we would like, honestly-- all our titles for our fans that have been playing our games, they know that we like to think of our titles as evolving titles. So really, the launch day, September 4th, is really only just the start. We'll continue to update the game. We'll take feedback from our community, and then continue to keep improving the title.

But since you mentioned September 4th and the premium edition, I do want to point out that the people who get the Premium edition will be able to play the game up to seven days early. So they get early access to the game, get to play it. So it is going to be fantastic. And in fact, the premium edition has more than just early--

EMMA BRIDLE: Wait, there's more. [CHUCKLING]

EARNEST YUEN: Wait, there's more. Yeah, more than just seven days early access. They have the two expansion packs later on that will be coming. They also have the new gods pack of Freya, which is new to the game. And also for the fans that remember the original, we have an additional pack that you can change the portrait of the gods to be the original classic look as well.

EMMA BRIDLE: You can go retro.

EARNEST YUEN: So you can go retro. It's just for the hardcore fans that they will love this. I highly, highly recommend the premium edition. Just it is just really good.

EMMA BRIDLE: It's great. There's so much good stuff in it. It's going to be really, really good.

MALIK: So all--

JENN PANATTONI: And early access. That's hard to beat.

EMMA BRIDLE: And early access.

JENN PANATTONI: It's hard to beat.

MALIK: I'm no mathematician, but seven days before September 4 means August. So that means players can play in August if they get the Premium edition. Love that.

EMMA BRIDLE: More is definitely more.

MALIK: More is more. I think that's like the banner of--

EMMA BRIDLE: More monsters, more chaos.

MALIK: More graphics, more pixels, all the things.

EARNEST YUEN: More fun.

MALIK: Yeah. Well, Emma and Earnest, thank you so much for stopping by. And obviously, tell the team great job. And I players all around the world are excited to jump in to Age of Mythology. Yeah, awesome. September 4.

EMMA BRIDLE: September 4, PC and console.

MALIK: There we go. There we go.

[MUSIC PLAYING]

Cool. Well, I think that wraps it up for us today on our special strategy-focused episode of the official Xbox Podcast. So huge thanks to the Ara and Age of Mythology, Retold teams, but we've got lots of other special episodes for you to check out this week. Here's the schedule.

And we're looking forward to welcoming even more special guests, so make sure to join us back here tomorrow. And in the meantime, check out anything you may have missed earlier in the week on youtube.com/xbox and on podcast services by searching for Xbox Podcast. See you tomorrow.

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