For nearly 20 years, Age of Empires has been a well-loved staple that helped to define the RTS genre, and the latest installment from Relic Entertainment and Xbox Game Studios, Age of Empires IV, feels both familiar and modern. In Age of Empires IV, players will experience some of the greatest civilizations and battles in history, from the Normans and the Holy Roman Empire to Moscow and the Mongols. As leaders, players will need to gather resources, fortify their cities, expand, and command great forces to overpower their enemies.
In addition to the solo campaign modes in Age of Empires 4, players can engage in multiplayer co-op or PvP and play against enemy AI or one another to advance through the ages and determine who emerges victorious and who will be lost to history. They can also practice their skills in the Art of War mode, a returning feature from Age of Empires 3: Definitive Edition that allows players to try out different war strategies. All of these features combine to make Age of Empires 4 a definitive experience that could pave the way for new games in the series, but some of the warfare mechanics feel clunky and out of place in modern gaming.
A significant part of gameplay in Age of Empires 4 is warfare, and every civilization and culture has its own units that can fight or lend support and healing. Players will need to strategically position these allies to do the most damage to various enemy forces. To maintain supplies and soldiers, they will also spend time raiding and establishing (or re-establishing) cities to work the land, gather necessary resources, and develop a healthy economy. As armies and cities grow stronger, they gain access to better fighters and new technologies, including the beloved Age of Empires siege technology like trebuchets. The pacing of this progression is still engaging, a hallmark of Age of Empires and the RTS genre.
Age of Empires 4 is a game with impressive accessibility features, including options to filter colors, narrate the UI, control when and where subtitles appear, increase the contrast, and select an optimal difficulty. These features ensure that, whether a player is new to the Age of Empires series or a veteran, no matter how they choose to play, they can jump right in and enjoy the game. In particular, the addition of Story Mode allows players to bypass some of the major aspects of strategizing and the minutia of resource management to engage in battles without as much tactical know-how and simply interact with some of the major events in world history.
Most of the campaign of Age of Empires 4 leans into the series’ educational side and embraces its role as the premier historical RTS. The plot of each campaign is narrated like a historical documentary through “Hands-on History” videos, and players are treated to cutscene footage of real locations to give them a bit of context behind the battle they are about to fight. These videos outline aspects of culture, events leading up to the battles, and how war technologies developed. This is a fairly unique, educational mechanic and one that will likely be engaging to most history buffs. For the casual player, however, or to hardcore strategy fans without a predilection towards history, there is a skip option should the cutscenes become more of a hindrance than an engaging feature of gameplay.
The UI of Age of Empires 4 is fairly easy to understand, with helpful tooltips and pop-up hints that can help players quickly learn the controls so they are not fumbling during combat. There are no options to control the flow of time in Age of Empires 4 and enemies will capitalize on a player’s inaction, so knowledge of the UI is important and helpfully taught through early levels. The UI resembles the one from Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition, so it should be familiar to returning players. It manages to maintain a lot of the charm and nostalgia of the original games while also delivering a smoother and more seamless appearance in line with modern game design standards.
One of the major drawbacks of Age of Empires 4 is the history it tries to represent. The most important aspects of gameplay are the historical battles, like the Battle of Hastings or the 100 Years’ War. However, there are rarely mentions of other important aspects of history and civilization, such as the spread of government systems and development and sharing of culture. The cultural landmarks players will choose to erect to enter the next age almost always serve a military purpose, rather than aiding in diplomacy, culture, and governance. Even cultures with extremely prominent traits, like the scholars of the Delhi Sultanate, are only useful to players for crafting stronger military units. This is, of course, what Age of Empires is known for. However, it is difficult to really consider the game as a way for players to experience and take control of history when the mechanics are limited to building strong militaries and conquering throngs of faceless enemies.
The other significant concerns about Age of Empires 4 are its repetition and disorganization, at least in the solo campaign. Often, players will face several waves of the same kinds of enemy combatants using preset, familiar strategies. Once players learn which unit types are best suited for facing each enemy unit, battles can become both predictable and sometimes tedious. This is especially true in the early game, when there are fewer soldiers and unit types to work with. As players unlock new civilizations to play and fresh technologies and units to build, the strategy options improve and make the game more exciting, but this also makes the early game stand out as something of a slog by comparison. Managing individual soldiers and units of the same type can also be somewhat like herding cats, and players may have a difficult time rallying some of their troops or getting units of the same type to maintain formation and engage the right enemy. It is possible for players to lose a lot of soldiers this way, which can sometimes mess up their carefully crafted strategies.
Overall, however, Age of Empires IV delivers on its promise to create a worthy successor to the much-loved Age of Empires 2 but with a more modern spin more palatable to newcomers. Though the focus is mainly on warfare, and though developing an army can be a slow process at first, there is something incredibly compelling about coordinating battles and building up troops, cities, and outposts that could keep players up through the night working on their plans. While there is nothing especially groundbreaking about Age of Empires 4’s formula, it should manage to scratch a very particular nostalgic itch for fans and offer a starting point for beginners to begin their own journey through history.
Age of Empires IV launches October 28, 2021, for PC and Xbox Game Pass. Microsoft/Xbox provided a copy of Age of Empires to Screen Rant for the purpose of this review.
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