Myth of Empires is an open-world survival game by Angela Game with an incredibly deep progression system. Read our review to see what it did well, what it didn't do well, and if it's worth your time and money.
Myth of Empires Review Overview
What is Myth of Empires?
Myth of Empires is an open-world survival experience mixed in with the MMO RPG feel of the early 2000s. Boasting an incredibly diverse progression system with more than a thousand crafting recipes, you’re bound to find something you’re good at in Myth of Empires. Be it sweeping conquest across the continent or simple agriculture, Myth of Empires has it for you.
Myth of Empires features:
⚫︎ Over 1000+ crafting recipes for survival crafting fans
⚫︎ Expansive skill trees and expertise for almost any discipline
⚫︎ PvP and PvE servers for every kind of player
⚫︎ Detailed base-building and resource-gathering mechanics
⚫︎ Directional combat mechanics
For more gameplay details, read everything we know about Myth of Empires' gameplay and story.
 Steam |
$39.99 |
Myth of Empires Pros & Cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
 Incredibly Deep Progression System Dedicated and Custom Servers |
Unimaginably Grindy for its Price Idle Game Mechanics Don’t Work Well Not the Best Tutorial |
Myth of Empires Overall Score - 68/100
Myth of Empires is a game that I could either take or leave. It’s not exactly the best open-world survival experience in the market right now, nor is it the worst. It offers a lot of content for an acceptable price, though the tedium of accessing it all could be detrimental to its overall quality. If that’s what you’re into, then great, otherwise, I’d find a game with a steadier, more forgiving progression. Sad to say, despite its name, this empire’s pretty mediocre.
Myth of Empires Story - 7/10
Myth of Empire doesn’t have a story in the traditional sense because it encourages player choice above all else. This normally wouldn’t be too damning for a game from the open-world survival genre, but recent entries have proven that player choice and in-game lore aren’t mutually exclusive. Still, the world is somewhat cohesive in its design, enough to create your own story from, at the very least.
Myth of Empires Gameplay - 8/10
Myth of Empires’ gameplay is incredibly deep, consisting of skill trees upon skill trees and over a thousand crafting recipes on top of standard-fare survival mechanics. That’s well and good, but let’s get real, you’re not going to experience even half of those features if you’re not willing to dump a few hundred hours into this game. What I mean to say is that, although this game has plenty of content, its runtime is artificially inflated by overtly grindy mechanics and seemingly pointless directional combat.
Myth of Empires Visuals - 8/10
This game’s visuals are actually quite decent. I wouldn’t give it any awards for its art direction because it looks like every other multiplayer open-world survival game, but to give credit where it’s due, this game’s graphical quality is actually up to snuff.
Myth of Empires Audio - 6/10
This game's audio is quite alright, though it's mostly comprised of stock sounds that I've heard from many other survival MMOs. It make the game come off as cheap (though it isn't) and doesn't really evoke the grandeur that the game's marketing is trying to show off. Its music is also sufficient, though I wish the default volume controls weren't so keen to make my ears bleed.
Myth of Empires Value for Money - 5/10
While Myth of Empires’ price would be serviceable for a single-player game, $40 is pushing it for an open-world survival MMO. This game is much more fun when played with friends, though they’d have to pay that much too. And for a game that’s middling in quality on most fronts, that much coinage might be too much to fork over. I can still recommend this if your group appreciates this genre in particular, though I wouldn’t tell my buddies to get on this game on a whim.
Myth of Empires Review: A Grind of Mythical Proportions
Open-world survival games are all the rage nowadays. Something about the notion of toughing it out in the wilderness really gets the gang together for a hunter-gatherer mood. It started to kick off when Minecraft surged in popularity in the early to late 2010s, but it’s a whole genre now, and many developers have come out with gems since then.
Who could forget 2021s Valheim with its unique premise and fae stylings? Or what about the recently released Enshrouded and its voxel-based base-building? Well, there’s another game up to bat, and this one mixes in a little bit of Albion Online to keep things fresh. Let’s see if Myth of Empires can compete.
It might in the future, but not as it is now. I’m sad to waste a preamble like that on such a disappointing turn of events, but I like subverting expectations and I think it’s rather funny. Jokes aside, Myth of Empires, despite its name, isn’t all that mythical. Sure, it offers a lot of content, but its major pacing issues, odd gameplay mechanics, and ineffective tutorial all stand in the way of every new player just looking to get a feel for the game. It’s hard to gain interest in a topic if you don’t know what the heck is going on, but I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s start from the first tier and progress through everything that makes this game not so mythical.
We’ll begin with the double-edged sword that this game wields so proudly: its progression system. Picture this, you’re all tuckered out from playing EVE online, and Warframe’s just not in the cards today. You hear about this new Myth of Empires game and its Albion Online-esque focus on player choice, complete with a crafting system that’s a thousand recipes strong, and a directional combat system similar to For Honor’s. You boot the game up, spend ten hours in your first session, and then you realize that you’ve accomplished absolutely nothing by the end of it.
Yeah, that’s how slow progression in this game could be, especially if you’re playing alone. Granted, it’s not meant to be played alone, but we’ll get to the difficulty of getting your friends to play this game with you later. For now, I want to highlight just how grindy this game can get. The lengths you need to go through to achieve the sweeping empires they show in the trailer are mind-blowing. I played for a good few hours straight in my first playthrough and only managed to progress to wooden armor and slightly higher-than-garbage-tier weapons. One could argue that this is a skill issue, but I’ve played games like these religiously, and—let me tell you—this game’s grind is something else.
It takes forever to do anything in this game, which would be okay if this were an idler. But between the unskippable animations, your character’s glacial movement speed, and the insanely huge map, good luck getting a proper base made within an hour. I’m starting to think that this was on purpose because idling and earning EXP is a legitimate game mechanic that the devs implemented.
What good are all these recipes and skill trees if I can only progress through them by either doing menial tasks forever or nothing for extended periods? Is this even a game at this point? At least you can hop on easy mode and not grind as much, though in this mode you get a level every five seconds, which tips the pacing issues to the opposite extreme.
That said, it’s still an expansive tree of things to achieve, so if that’s your kind of game have at it. I’m just saying it might be a longer journey than you were expecting.
Server-wise, I can’t complain. This game has dedicated servers for both PvE and PvP content for pretty much anywhere in the world. If you’re looking to play a custom game on your own server, this game has that too, so that’s nice. This kind of freedom is great—necessary even—because if this game had bad servers on top of its grindy gameplay, then it’d be a true early 2000s MMO RPG experience, and I don’t mean that as a compliment.
In terms of graphics, this game’s got it on lock. I’ll be clear with my commendation because it might lead you to think that this game looks unique. It doesn't; it looks like every other open-world survival game, down to the wooden planks of the foundations. I commend it for its graphical quality because this looks and performs rather well for what it is.
While the game’s visuals are up to par, its audio—oh gods, its audio—is not. The music is alright, but nothing too special. It’s exactly what I’d expect from a game marketed as "Myth of Empires"—all fanfare and epic strings—so I can’t dig into that too much. What I’m complaining about is its volume control. Everything is so loud in this game, even when you turn down the volume sliders.
These fanfares play at the most random times too and you’d never expect when they’d blare next. I had to mute the music to make heads or tails of the game, not that it was easy to begin with. The game's SFX isn't the greatest either. It's middling at best and stock-sounding at worst. I can almost swear that I've heard some of these sounds form a mobile game before.
To add to all that, this game is confusing. Never mind the language barrier (most of the players communicate exclusively in Chinese), the clunky tutorial will be your downfall. The tutorial is just a series of missions to show you the ins and outs of the game. That’s not a bad thing per se, I just wish that the instructions were clearer. A lot of these missions ask you to do something without telling you which tab it’s in or what it does.
The very first one was meant to teach you about various expertise and how to assign skill points to them so you gain EXP for them faster. All of that was boiled down to "Press X Button and follow the flashing tabs", or something to that effect. You'll get it eventually, but it'll be a very confusing first few minutes for you.
And there ends the legend of Myth of Empires. It’s not quite all there and is extremely rough around the edges, but I’ve seen people sink thousands of hours into this game, so there must be something. The biggest hit to its quality is its price and progression, which don’t really work that well together. All this work for something you had to pay $40 for might not be everyone’s cup of tea. Maybe it’s not quite the myth it was all cracked up to be, but hey, maybe it can settle for a fable or legend instead.
Pros of Myth of Empires
| Things Myth of Empires Got Right |
|---|
|
Incredibly Deep Progression System Dedicated and Custom Servers |
Incredibly Deep Progression System
It took some deliberating to know whether the game’s incredibly deep progression system was a boon or bane to its quality. I ultimately chose to frame it as a boon, since this game’s progression is its main selling point. The fact that it also eats into its quality doesn’t make it a downside—more of an unforeseen consequence than anything else.
But yes, this game’s progression is profoundly complex, with layers upon layers of progression that compound each other. Item recipes make up the simplest of the game progression as they only need level requirements, but even that has more than a thousand entries ranging from weapons and armor to structures.
Skills can be learned by leveling up your expertise, the rate of which is affected by what you’re focusing your points on at the moment. These are just a couple of the systems that progress you forward and, trust me, there are plenty more. I’ll let you figure those out on your own, but rest assured, they’ll keep you preoccupied.
Dedicated and Custom Servers
This sounds like it should be included in every MMO, but no, it’s a luxury and this game has it. Dedicated servers are available for both PvE and PvP content, so there’s a server for every type of player. Custom servers are also readily available if you just want to play with your friends, which is already a cut above other multiplayer open-world survival games like Minecraft, which may require third-party assistance.
Cons of Myth of Empires
| Things That Myth of Empires Can Improve |
|---|
|
Unimaginably Grindy for its Price Idle Game Mechanics Don’t Work Well Not the Best Tutorial |
Unimaginably Grindy for its Price
What’s the bane to a deep and complex progression system? Why, an unnecessarily grindy gameplay loop, of course! Fun as it is to grind for loot and resources with your friends, there’s a fine line between working towards a goal and slaving away. The sheer amount of content this game has works against how slow you progress through it mechanically, leaving inflated playtimes that could deter some people. Not everyone has time to sink into this game, you know?
And for a $40 price tag, some might outright ask for a refund when they realize that they just don’t have the time to sink into this game. I recognize that not every game has to be a grab-and-go situation, but there’s a reason that grindy games are usually free. Having to work to enjoy a game you’ve already paid for just doesn’t sit well with a lot of folks. Multiply that discontent a few times for an entire group of people and you’ll see what I mean.
Idle Game Mechanics Don’t Work Well
It seems like a Band-Aid solution to the game’s glaring progression issues, but the devs did implement an idle training system to let players earn EXP outside the game. I have a few problems with this system because it posits an inconvenient dichotomy between toiling away forever and doing nothing. Both of those choices don’t make for great gameplay, in my opinion. The former could take the fun out of the experience and alienate those who cannot commit to the game’s grindy mechanics. The latter…well…why even play the game at this point?
Not the Best Tutorial
I’ve mentioned it before and I’ll mention it again, this game’s tutorial is insufficient for its gameplay’s complexity. It’s a very standard tutorial comprised of missions guiding you to the next step. Unfortunately, they lack the necessary details to guide you through the steps, instead telling you to "do this" and "do that" without much elaboration. It’s good practice to not coddle the player, but I don’t think using precise language and direction in a tutorial counts as coddling.
If you’re new to this franchise, beware, you’re going to be learning things by yourself for the most part.
Is Myth of Empires Worth It?
It Could Be, But Ask Your Friends First
I’m not going to count this game out yet because I can see the appeal. There is a satisfaction to gain from working hard and having your efforts pay off, I just don’t think you should have to grind this hard, especially for $40. You can get plenty of satisfaction from other games for far less coinage, and much sooner too. If you and your friends are in for the long haul, sure, get this game and clear out a month of your time in advance. If you’re unsure if you or your friends could commit to it, it’s better that you move along.
| Platform | Price |
|---|---|
| Steam |
$39.99 |
Myth of Empires FAQ
How Do I Tame a Horse in Myth of Empires?
First, you need to build a reign. If you do not have the reign crafting recipe available yet, you may have to level up first. Once you craft a reign, you must find a horse and start riding it. From here, it’s a matter of balancing the horse’s Obedience and Rage meters by moving around. Reaching 100% obedience will tame the horse for your use.
Where Can I Get Clay in Myth of Empires?
Clay can be found in clumps along riverbeds and can be harvested using a hammer. To find a river, simply press the "M" key and look for one on the world map. You may mark it on your map to make travel easier.
Game8 Reviews
You may also like...
Myth of Empires Product Information
 |
|
| Title | MYTH OF EMPIRES |
|---|---|
| Release Date | February 22, 2024 |
| Developer | Angela Game |
| Publisher | Imperium Interactive Entertainment |
| Supported Platforms | Pc (Steam) |
| Genre | Survival, MMO |
| Number of Players | Online Multiplayer |
| ESRB Rating | N/A |
| Official Website | Myth of Empires Website |
