The first Myth caused a stir in the real-time strategy genre by eschewing any notion of base-building and raising of armies. In fact, there were debates and discourses amongst fans of the genre about the merits of removing the usual tropes of RTS games at the time; this can be seen in the disparity between official reviews which criticized the game's difficulty (e.g. GameRevolution) and those that lauded it for doing something different (e.g. GameSpot).
Unfortunately, as creative as its designers were, they may have taken the series' main attraction for granted. Bungie, which made the first game, created a sequel that wasn't any remarkably different from the perspective of gameplay and visuals, but did add a handful of new units that trip up gameplay somewhat.
The developers of the third game appeared to do little different gameplay-wise, but they had the disadvantage of having had a short time to develop the third game before the arrival of the deadline by Take 2 Interactive (which is the current owner of the series). The developers managed to deliver a very functional game with much-improved graphics anyway, but the result is certainly not leap-and-bounds above the second game in terms of fundamentals.
Of course, this would not matter much for game consumers who are eager for more official Myth games, but those who had expected more than this would be quite disappointed. However, the strong, signature traits of the series are undiminished in Wolf Age.
One of these traits is story-telling. Myth III is not a narrative sequel to the first two games, but is instead a prequel that is set in the past. Nevertheless, the story is yet another one of good-versus-evil, with the player predictably taking on the side of the Forces of Light.
The typical makings of a fantastical story aside, Myth III takes a route that explains the set-up for the first two games, and how the motley crew of allies in the Forces of Light came together to battle the similarly loosely-knit hordes of ravening evil that threaten their existence.
To describe the narrative devices and plot twists that were used would be to describe spoilers, but it should suffice to say that they would bring satisfaction to fans of the series. One good, almost-spoiler free example would be the circumstances that bring together the defenders of civilization (or otherwise earnest lifestyles, in the case of the Berserkers) into debts of honour with each other in the first place. This would satisfy fans of the series who had thought the culturally diverse alliance to be too unlikely, if they had been inclined to look at the Forces of Light from a geo-political point of view.
Having no base-building whatsoever, the gameplay is presented through the units used by both sides and how they are used during battles - again, this is not much different from the previous games.
As for the units in the game, there are many returning units and a few new ones to fit into the story. The returning ones also get different versions that serve to present the more exciting chapters in the story.
The forces of Light have the Berserkers and Knights from the previous games as their core melee troops, with Archers (a.k.a. Bowmen) as their main source of fire support.
Special support for the Forces of Light comes in the form of the Dwarves, with their canonical predilection for explosives that apparently is unchanged over the course of a millennium. In addition, there are the Heron Guards, who have the (very interesting) dual-roles of healers and shock troops.
The Forces of Darkness typically have more kinds of units, though their units are still of the highly specialized sorts that only excel at one role but are terrible at anything else.
The Ghols return as the bad guys' scouts, still as fast and nasty with their curved blades as they were in previous games. The slow but numerous Thralls, who can still ford bodies of water without any problems, return to make up the bulk of the Dark forces. Another returning unit is the Soulless, who retain their ability to harry enemy units at range and hover over any terrain without any speed penalties (and bonuses).
The specialist units of the Forces of Darkness also include some units that fans of the series had known all too well. The Wights are still the slow, undead suicide-bombers that they are, while Stygian Knights remain devastating counters against the generally better melee troops of the Forces of Light.
All of the units mentioned above are re-makes of their previous versions in Myth II, which can perhaps be a disappointment to some. However, they do benefit from new models, as will be described later.
There are some units that have not been seen in previous Myth games, such as dwarfish Axemen and their Blacksmiths (who use their blowtorches to great effect), but these are mainly for the story campaign.
There had been promises by the developers to incorporate these units in multiplayer, but official support for the game was cut off before these promises could be realized. Instead, the game-makers passed the buck over to the fans of the series by giving the latter the source code. At launch, the units in Myth III may have been more unremarkable in multiplayer than in single-player.
Some units from the second game do not return, such as the Mortar Dwarves and Fetches, for reasons that could be related to gameplay-balance concerns or thematic/narrative restrictions.
Fortunately, whatever units that are officially restricted to the story campaigns can be very entertaining. Notable ones include the (chronologically) previous, more powerful forms of the Trows, before they went au naturale and fight with only their feet and hands. Then, there are the named, unique heroes of the Forces of Light, four of whom would be all-too-familiar to fans of the first two games and each of whom have abilities that are very powerful.
As in the previous games, all game modes have the player starting out with a handful of units, with next to no opportunity for reinforcements. In the case of the campaign, the player gets no choice in the types of units that the player can bring into the mission, though he/she may have opportunities for reinforcements during certain missions.
Units can also accumulate experience in the form of kills, becoming better at doing what they do. However, if the player had expected the opportunity to nurture a powerful force like he/she could in previous games, he/she was mistaken.
In the previous games, the player can practically transfer units from one level to another if the next mission has the same kinds of units as the ones used in the previous, assuming that they survived. Therefore, this had allowed players to foster a powerful force of veterans, if they had been careful enough. However, this also meant that some missions in the previous games were rendered much easier than the game designers intended.
Wolf Age trips up the formula somewhat by only having certain missions (including the few last ones) benefiting from transfers of unit experience. In most missions, the player will be using units that are set by mission designs. This may be better for gameplay balance, though players who have had satisfaction from raising a powerful army would be disappointed.
However, having the statistics of units defined by mission conditions allows the game designers to craft missions that can be quite gripping, though like the previous games in the series, Wolf Age has the player facing more numerous (but often dispersed) enemy forces with only a handful of units.
There are more AI improvements (for enemy forces) in the campaign missions this time around. For example, small groups of enemies tend to be sentries/screens for much larger groups, which they will run off to alert if the player cannot eliminate them quickly. This design was present in the previous games, but it has been efficiently applied to just about every small group of enemies by default. This fulfills the series' goal of encouraging the player to be more cautious and wily (that is, exploiting this behavior to either lure the big mob into ambushes or sneaking past them).
Pathfinding for units has been improved further than in Myth II. All units are very likely to stick to the path that they have been ordered to move on, without any finicky re-calculation of their paths that would take them very far away from where they are supposed to go. However, all units still move at different speeds, causing the player's forces to often arrive piece-meal at their destination.
Repeating the tradition of previous games, the game designers have included (but did not document) intentional controls glitches that unlocks every level and win/lose campaign missions, if only to address complaints that some missions can be too difficult for them to complete. Considering that fun part as promised by the game is figuring out how to beat these tough scenarios, giving players the means to skip levels can reduce the entertainment that can be had. Moreover, important plot twists may occur during these missions.
The graphical aspect of Myth III is perhaps its greatest asset. If compared to those in its predecessors, models and levels in Myth III are far more refined, thanks to the highly-revamped game engine. Units in this game are now fully 3D, having plenty of polygons and animations (for an RTS game of that time). They have detailed textures that are pretty to look at (except when very up-close). The new 3D models for these units also give the designers an opportunity to include animations that allow them to express emotions at certain moments in missions, such as their successful completion when the player's units will celebrate and cheer their victory.
However, the developers may have made the mistake of assuming that they are good enough for in-game cutscenes. Their models are pretty, but only when viewed from a high enough zoom. Certain in-game cutscenes, especially those involving unique heroes, bring the camera up-close, showing the deficiencies of these models for cutscenes, such as the lack of facial animations, no lip-synching, lumped polygons for hands, etc.
Myth II has raised the par for the series in terms of detailed, fully 3D environments; Myth III raises the par further. The levels in this game are set in environments with climates that range from marshes and forests to lush jungles and snowy mountains. Each one of them have plenty of terrain-related objects, even levels that are set in desolate environments, such as deserts (which have plenty of rocks of different shapes, sizes and textures to portray the erosive passage of time in these places). However, unlike the models, every environment is virtually static, except for a few such as a darkly magical forest.
The audio designs mostly consist of sound effects only; there are no musical soundtracks for in-game matches. Whatever soundtracks there are, are mainly for the movie files that come packaged with the game.
The units for the Forces of Light appears to have European or British accents, as befitting the region of the world that it was developed in. The voice-acting mostly fit the fantastical archetypes that the units have, giving them the personalities that they expectedly have. Some good examples are the voice-acting for the dwarves, which sound gleeful and irritable when in and out of battle respectively, and which is appropriate with respect to their canon in the Myth universe.
The units for the Forces of Darkness have less impressive voice-acting. Most of them typically sound menacing, having no more than snarls, growls, moans and groans for their voiced responses and battle-cries. Nonetheless, they are still appropriate and are hardly irritating.
The sound effects in this game are mainly composed of those for battle. Clashing of metal and ripping of flesh accentuate battles between opposing melee warbands, twangs of bowstrings accompany the release of arrows, the whoosh of flames follow the trajectory of the Dwarves' fiery cocktails, the bass of explosions, etc. However, magic may not sound as pleasant; the sound effects that depict magical occurrences can be loud at times and often drone in a monotone manner.
Maps come with a handful of environmental and ambient noises, though maps with themes of desolation, such as a dry, mountain plateau, have hardly any. In other maps, the player can hear noises that can be expected from their terrain, e.g. slopping noises from marsh-themed maps. Maps that have location-based objectives, such as magical objects that are tethered to a part of the map, have special sound effects that alert the player to the presence of these objectives.
Following the tradition of the Myth series, Wolf Age also resorts to non-technical means of presentation.
Adding to the personality of units is a collection of passages that would appear when a unit is selected (including enemies; the passage selected appears to be random and changes every time the unit is selected. In addition to being quite entertaining, these passages contain novel-like snippets that describe the personality and function of the unit. Unfortunately, they are located in panels in the user interface that usually cannot show the complete text. The font can also be too small to read at times.
Cutscenes (of sorts) involving hand-drawn artwork are used to present the (successful) transition between consecutive campaign missions. The artwork mostly consists of single images and could have been pieces of concept artwork that had been included whole-sale in the game, but fortunately, they are adequate enough to present the gist of the cutscenes. There are also cutscenes to depict mission failures, so there may still be some entertainment to be had from failing miserably.
The multiplayer experience in this game would have been little different from the ones in the previous games (barring the improved graphics, that is), if not for rather unstable gameplay; the game is not developed for any operating system after Windows 2000. There were also promises of post-launch features that went unfulfilled, and the eventual withdrawal of any official support as Take-Two appeared to mothball the series.
In conclusion, Myth III: The Wolf Age could have been a better game, especially considering the first impression that its enhanced graphics made. However, a tight development schedule and lack of official support from the game-makers crimped its potential. Myth III would appear to be the last of its line indefinitely, but it is nevertheless very, very far from being a poor game. Yet, considering how little different Myth III's gameplay is from its predecessors, ending the series on its own note may had been for the better.