Postmortem: Myth: The Fallen Lords

Myth Postmortem

Introduction The Making of a Legend, er, Myth What Worked What Went Wrong Post-Release Reactions

With all the prerelease hype Myth had received, we were very anxious to see how the public would receive the final version. The reactions from beta testers were phenomenally positive, as were the comments from customers and reviewers. Our swiftness in correcting problems and adding several user-requested features with a 1.1 patch only earned us more kudos from the press and public.

But possibly the most satisfying result of the game is the degree to which it lessens the appeal of playing with a traditional isometric perspective. Working on Myth so consumed our time that we didn't get a chance to play anything else; we looked forward to playing some old favorites and the latest demos of our high-profile competition after we shipped. It was a real surprise to discover that once we were accustomed to Myth's 3D camera and its associated freedom, playing isometric games was frustrating -- the action seemed distant and unrealistic, while the view of the world was annoyingly rigid. This sentiment was echoed in both player comments and reviews of the game. Since our Marathon products were derided by some as Doom rip-offs, it was especially satisfying to hear players say that Myth pushes the genre in a new direction, from which there's no looking back.

As of late 1997, Myth: The Fallen Lords had shipped 350,000 copies worldwide in four languages on two platforms. bungie.net currently boasts tens of thousands of registered users and is being expanded to keep up with the constantly increasing demand. As I write, it has just been declared Game of the Year by Computer Games Strategy Plus and Strategy Game of the Year by Computer Gaming World. It remains to be seen whether Myth will inspire other entries into the 3D real-time strategy game genre. But if nothing else, Myth is proof that a very small team with a strong product vision can still make a very big game.

Jason Regier is currently a senior programmer at Bungie Software.  He has four titles under his belt and was lead programmer for two of them.  He started making games professionally in 1994 while attending Harvey Mudd College and has been doing so ever since.  He can be reached at jregier@bungie.com and welcomes resumes from anyone interested in joining Bungie for future projects.