The Age of Mythology Fan Archive is here!

Fans have been asking for these storyboards, concept art, and screenshots for years. These rare images can now be found at:

https://moddingaom.wordpress.com/

5 Likes

Just dropped by to say thanks so much for sharing this! I’ve already spent a few hours going through this and relieving the excitement as a child waiting for the next GameSpot Major God Preview for the next month :pleading_face:

Major takeaways:

  • I’m really disappointed that War Turtle became an alligator snapping turtle. Although less menacing, it was a better fit for the region.
  • Zeus Beta portrait looked so much better!
  • I never liked the depiction of Scylla. Seeing the Alpha art… omg. Why didn’t they stick to mythology? Instead of a swimming dinosaur, we could have had a multi-headed serpent lady with a waist made of dog heads! I’m really surprised (and kind of annoyed) that Retold didn’t correct this. If they could make Argus look more menacing, why couldn’t they fix this.
  • Manticore concept art look insane!

I was desperate for info about the process of making AoM, so this is a gold mine. I remember at one point I even emailed Ensemble Studios to ask questions about cut units. They were really good about responding too :grinning_face: I was so sad to learn that what I thought was a stone giant (Golem) was cut. I’m glad retold finally added an awesome one!

P.S. Have you thought of contacting Forgotten Empires for the items you’re missing? At the very least they’ll have all the art for the Tale of the Dragon, since they produced it and it was probably all digital. They also probably have access to the achieves of Microsoft that would contain all the different materials from the original game.

1 Like

some i knew and were known in the community already. some not - i think. at least not for me personally.

i am not sure about the manticore.
the zeus beta portrait - which one you mean isn’t it the same as the old aom version?
war turtle i partly understand you. turtle even being a badass snapping turtle still feels underwhelming unfortunately. only the carcinos of greeks feels worse - at least for me.
argus - where… ah. wait, what? it looks like a giant blob/slime. xD idk man >.<
but i agree witht he scylla even tho i like the scylla model it would fit much better to the hydra and the scylla should look different i agree.


for me personally these where some of the best and worst concepts:

best -



(basically the retold version which is a really cool change)


(looks similar to the leviathan version but better and more fearsome in my opinion)
and:

there it is. my beloved in all its glory and what could have been. sigh


worst -


(like come one how did they come up with THAT? the other cyclops concept looks worse >.<ā€˜ā€™ there are many cool cyclops ideas like the one from total war troy mythos, ray harryhausen or dragon age inquisition ā€œgiantā€ cyclops etc but this are definitely not one of them so not everything old is better x) )


also:


sad to see cerberus is also bipedal in old concept arts… but at least retold did a much better more badass job with this unit for sure!

I am glad to hear that you had fun! Beta Syclla is something I have been tracking for a long time, but I couldn’t find her 3D model in any build. :frowning:

I actually contacted quite a bit of people about the Shennong portrait but the original artist was reluctant and everyone else had the obscured version from the poster.

I am not sure if Microsoft has access to the original art either. Because Gaia and the Oranos god portraits were nearly completely remade for the Retold Portrait Pack.