Golf With the Gods: ‘Walkabout Mini Golf’ Releases New ‘Mount Olympus’ Course Today

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Mar 6, 2025

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We all know Mount Olympus as the home of the gods—but I bet you didn’t know Zeus liked to unwind with 18 holes of mini golf after spending all day hurling lightning bolts at random mortals.

Today marks the release of the new Mount Olympus course for Walkabout Mini Golf. Ascend to a land of myth made real, a marvel of classical Greek temples connected by column-lined putting greens. Per usual, Mount Olympus contains two 18-hole courses (one easy, one hard), plus an unlockable putter, a new collection of themed Lost Balls to discover, and new cosmetics that will let you cosplay as your favorite Olympians.

We caught up with Emma Mercado, Senior 3D Artist at Mighty Coconut, to talk favorite deities, putting a new spin on a familiar theme, and favorite myths tucked away in the corners of Mount Olympus.

Check out the full interview below, or head over to the Meta Horizon Store to pick up Walkabout Mini Golf’s Mount Olympus add-on course and start playing.

First: Who’s your favorite member of the Greek pantheon, and why?

Emma Mercado: This is a dangerous question to ask a person. At the risk of being smited (Smote? Smoot?) by Zeus or cursed to live a life full of rejection by Aphrodite, I’d say it’s a toss up between Artemis, Hermes, and Dionysus. I’m a sucker for a good trickster and cheeky festivities, and Artemis is just such a babe.

Greek mythology is obviously well-trod territory—in books, in art, in film, even in video games. Can you talk about some of your inspirations and also what spin you tried to put on it for Walkabout Mini Golf?

EM: There’s such an abundance of ideas and takes on Greek Mythology—the team has a whole underground network built out of all the rabbit holes we’ve fallen down.

Lots of us are big fans of Hades from Supergiant Games. Edith Hamilton’s Mythology and Ovid’s Metamorphoses are classics and Stephen Fry’s Mythos has a more entertaining take on mythology. I’d personally enjoyed the Kaos Netflix series as a more modern personification of the gods.

Walkabout took a more traditional approach, giving each god their own temple with props and gameplay to highlight their lore and iconic story bits. The gods and goddesses are incredibly busy deities and much prefer gallivanting about to loafing around at home. Not to mention that mortals don’t have the fortitude to survive seeing the gods in their true forms. (RIP Semele!)

Players will be able to safely admire and pay homage to the statues of gods within their personal temples built with traditional ancient Greek architecture. Most of the character of our gods comes through in the dramatic Foxhunt written by Jeff Mills.

Walkabout Mini Golf obviously uses props and set decoration to great effect. Can you talk about some favorite little scenes or secrets in Mount Olympus?

EM: Senior Concept Artist Zach Alexander and Senior Art Director Don Carson really championed digging through props from the stories about each god! The story of the affair between Ares and Aphrodite—and the reaction of her jealous husband Hephaestus—is particularly juicy. Alectryon was turned into a rooster for failing as Ares’ bedroom guard and a rose was (not so subtly) left beside his bed.

Arachne continues to hang around Athena’s loom after besting her at a weaving contest. The story of Demeter’s grief over losing her daughter Persephone to Hades is shown through the changing seasons at her temple.

Nearly every prop within the temples relates to a story about its god.

Anything that proved especially fun or challenging to work on for Mount Olympus?

EM: The course is huge! It’s the tallest, largest, and densest course to date! Plus there’s just so much content to pull from. The biggest challenge for me personally was having to stop.

As full as the course is, there were so many ideas that didn’t make it in—which was also the most fun part of the course. It’s exciting to be able to take something and truly run with it, while still being able to keep everyone on the same page.

Is there another pantheon you’d like to see Walkabout Mini Golf explore in the future? (Or more broadly, any themes you’d like to see?)

EM: We’ve been able to touch on quite a few pantheons and myths through the Lost Cities courses—including Norse mythology and the Egyptian pantheon. Poseidon even made a cameo already in Atlantis (internally called Sea Daddy). This is the first time we’d been able to be so on-the-nose with it, though.

I’d love to have the chance to work with Japanese and Native American folklore as well.

Anything else you’d like to share with our readers?

EM: We just really like you guys! Player support is the reason we get to keep working on projects we love and I’m just ridiculously grateful for that. Catch y’all on the putting green!

Walkabout Mini Golf and the new Mount Olympus course are available now on the Meta Horizon Store.