Myth of Empires Review

So I’ve played several survival builder games like Ark, Conan Exiles, and Life is Feudal, just to name a few. It’s one of my favorite genres to play around in, and the recent shutdown of the Life is Feudal: The MMO servers has left a niche community without a game to dump hours into. So when I first heard about Myth of Empires, I was definitely interested. The trailer looks great; it’s set somewhat after the fall of the Han Dynasty in Feudal China. The exact time period is uncertain, being described simply as happening in the third century. Either way, it’s an exciting era in a part of the world we don’t often see in video games.

Despite my efforts, I couldn’t get a key for the first alpha in April of this year. I heard information second-hand about the game, I watched a couple of streams, but it’s not the same as playing it myself. Recently they began a second test primarily for localization purposes, and I found myself again left out. They offered raffle tickets as Twitch drops, but even those let me down. It wasn’t until midnight or so on Thursday that they released scrambled keys on their discord. Unscramble a key before anyone else, and you could get into the alpha. Finally, success was mine, and I had roughly 24 hours to try out the game before the end of the test.

I managed to put in 11 hours of playtime, and the experience was both familiar and refreshing. The relatively unknown developers called Angela Game have taken elements from various games and put them together rather nicely. The NPC recruitment is similar to Conan Exiles, allowing you to build an army to fight next to you and crafters to help you complete projects more efficiently. The horse taming system is very simple while also adding a breeding system so you can try and create that perfect horse. Each horse and NPC has their own stats and skills. Not every horse can be a warhorse; not every NPC will make a good soldier.

The combat is something fans of the Mount & Blade series will recognize while increasing from 4 directional attacks to 8 attacks. The building system is much like most survival games, allowing you to snap individual foundations, walls, ceiling tiles, etc. Some structures come pre-built, like the stables to protect your horses and tents where fallen soldiers can be nursed back to health. One improvement people will enjoy is that when an NPC or a horse is killed, they aren’t actually dead. Each has a “life force” stat that will decrease each time they die. After a while, they are available again at the stable or tent. If they die and don’t have enough life force left, they’re gone forever.

For an alpha test, the game ran rather well. Most people I’ve spoken to haven’t encountered any game-breaking bugs, and although I’m sure someone will find exploits, there didn’t seem to be any readily apparent. Optimization will come in the future, but my 1660 Super ran the game comfortably at medium settings, and when I cranked it up to ultra, the landscape is truly breathtaking. Galloping across fields of tall grass swaying in the wind while swinging a sword at bandits and boars was just as fun as you would expect. With the available siege engines and NPC soldiers, battles between large guilds should be truly epic to see, but that will have to be in another test. For now, I’m just waiting for the next one and hoping I’m lucky enough to get another key. Who knows, maybe I’ll see you there!