60 Second Preview of…

Myth III: The Wolf Age at E3 2001

The Specs

Myth III: The Wolf Age takes place 1000 years before the first two Myth games. This prequel is a fully 3D squad-based game that plays in real-time. The game will follow the life of Connacht the Wolf, a legendary hero in the Myth storyline. The Myth series uses a combined arms approach to its tactical combat, with a mix of ranged attacks and melee units. It's not a game where players harvest resources and build units. Players start with an existing force and play through the scenario with it. Myth III will be mission based, with 25 scripted missions planned. Multiplayer is supported and with the first two games proved to be quite popular.

The Speculation

Mark's Comments: I'm heartened that Mumbo Jumbo are bigtime Myth fans. They claim that collectively, they've played tens of thousands of hours of Myth. That bodes well, and setting up Myth 3 as a prequel is an interesting idea. The hero of this game is the...well, if you haven't played Myth, I don't want to spoil it for you. Go play Myth. Mumbo Jumbo's going to an all 3D engine for this game, which means the character models are made of polygons instead of sprites. They definitely look better, but they moved with a bit of jerkiness during the demo I watched. One big change is that instead of just having a dwarven bombadier, we'll have other dwarven units as well. The races are being fleshed out so that if you want to play as the dwarves or the guys who look like they came from the Braveheart flick in multiplayer, you can. My biggest concern is that the development cycle for this game seems a bit rushed. It's pretty ambitious to start and finish a game in just a year or so.

Tom's Comments: Sometimes I'm bad at a game because it's a lousy game. Other times I'm bad because there's a lot of depth in the game. Myth is an example of the latter. It will always be the game in which my own Dwarves blew up all my other guys. I'm glad to see there will be new things in Myth III my Dwarves can do to my other guys. But since Myth-creators Bungie are now a part of Microsoft, this sequel is being developed by some guys from Ritual calling themselves Mumbo Jumbo. All good and well, but Myth's strength was primarily the sort of tactical depth that had my Dwarves blowing everyone else to kingdom come. My concern here is that these former first person shooter developers might be putting too much emphasis on the new 3D engine. I'm all for fancy technology that puts in swaying trees (a bona fide feature of Myth III), but let's hope they don't lose sight of what made Myth great by focusing on polygonal gore baths and wafting foliage.