Age of Empires 4 Review: a revival of the brilliance of the RTS series

If it is possible to play it safe with a real-time strategy game in 2021, then Age of Empires 4 play it safe. The new game from Relic Studios, which takes over the previous franchise developer Ensemble, is more of a modernized remake of Age of Empires 2 as a sequel to the third game in the series. But it turns out that updating a 20 year old classic is actually a pretty good idea.

In AoE 4, Players choose one of the eight civilizations in the game. Age of Empires 3 transferred the series to the colonial era, however AoE 4 returns to the Middle Ages – just like the second game. Each civilization has its own special bonuses and some unique buildings and units that players can build. They all start with a city center and six villagers (of the three in Age of Empires 2), with the aim of building a prosperous city with its own economy and of course its own army. The main attraction of the game is its competitive mode which includes duels, team games or free warfare with other civilizations, all of which can be played offline against AI or online with other players.

To build their cities and armies, players must collect resources, erect buildings, and create every single combat unit while trying to counter their enemies’ soldiers at the same time. Players can also upgrade the technology of their cities and armies by building special landmarks that will lead them into a new historical age, with a total of four to advance through. Building your cities and their technology is important, but the bread and butter of Age of Empires has always been the armies and the battle.

Every civilization has access to basic units that form a nice triad of counterattacks: spearmen versus cavalry, cavalry versus archers, and archers versus spearmen. This basic premise is right ripped off Age of Empires 2 (and in real life, technically) but the fight, like most things, is a little easier in AoE 4. For example archers in Age of Empires 4 always meet their goals. While this was an upgrade, archers could get in at some point AoE 2, most of the little skirmishes in the older game were about moving units to dodge arrows, something that AoE 4 completely eliminated.

This simplification extends to more than just the struggle. Lots of the little problems that used to be part of the chaotic city management of AoE 2 have disappeared from the newer game. Players no longer have to replant their farms as the villagers tend them and the villagers rarely get in each other’s way, often they just walk straight into each other making them a lot less of a hassle. While Age of Empires 4 is still a complicated game, the complications of which stem more from decision making and strategy than from the minute details of mechanical games.

The civilizations here differ more than they used to be Age of Empires 2 – although the newest game doesn’t go that far AoE 3who gave radically different units and economic play styles to each civilization, largely through the choice of landmarks you build at each age.

An army on the move through the wilderness

AoE 4 also introduces some great twists to the basic building formula that allow for more creativity. AoE 2 implicitly encouraged players to adopt certain city designs, as buildings could form makeshift walls around a base. In Area of action 4, Units can walk around buildings regardless of their proximity, which allows more design freedom. The game also introduces production buffs for buildings depending on what other buildings are nearby; These bonuses usually vary from faction to faction and help make each city design feel unique. That way, players can refine their bases and identify with the place they built in such a way that AoE 2 just scratched the surface and Age of Empires 3 mostly leave.

Adding to the consistency of your city in every game is the fact that the defenses in this game are much stronger than ever before in the series. While there have always been walls in Age of Empires, AoE 4s stone walls are a cut above their predecessors. The new stone walls can only be destroyed by siege weapons and not by regular soldiers. Infantry units can make rudimentary battering rams on their own – once you’ve researched the upgrade for it – but it still means that sieges require a lot more planning and resource investment than they used to. Additionally, archers can now stand on stone walls for a small buff.

Outside the normal multiplayer mode of the game Age of Empires 4 also has an excellent single player mode that features four different historical campaigns. These put players in the position of historical generals and armies from four different civilizations at four specific epochs of history: the English at the time of the anarchy, the Mongols during their invasion of Russia and China, the Russians with Moscow on the advance and the French who fight against the English in the Hundred Years War.

Build a base to produce soldiers, cavalry and artillery

Each campaign has multiple missions, and each mission begins with a superbly filmed and occasionally re-enacted historical narrative that sets the political and tactical stage for the battle you will be playing. These scenes are catnip for the history buff, and while they won’t make you an expert on English Civil Wars, they still help make each new mission feel like an important part of a bigger narrative.

The missions themselves are quite different, putting you in situations where normal Age of Empires would never face humans or the AI. You will face certain challenges, such as the requirement to use a specific group of units to take down the enemy or lead a small force to defend a huge castle from the enemy’s advancing army. Each scenario eventually ends with you killing all of the remaining enemies, which can make some of the missions feel a little the same at the end, but everything that leads to it is exciting and different from the standard multiplayer games.

In the 16 years since the last “new” Age of Empires game, video games have changed a lot, and in Age of Empires 4, Relic manages to serve modern gamers without losing the soul of the series. The game revives and renews the fantastic multiplayer of Age of Empires not through fundamental changes, but through clever adjustments to old systems. These small updates can take a long time Age of Empires 2 Fans, however, they are a welcome and important addition to the series and make AoE 4 Feel like the first modern, real-time, big-budget strategy game in since Starcraft 2.

Age of Empires 4 will be released on October 28th on Steam and Xbox Game Pass for PC. The game has been verified using a pre-release download code provided by Microsoft. Vox Media has affiliate partnerships. These do not affect the editorial content, although Vox Media can earn commissions on products purchased through affiliate links. you find more information on Polygon’s ethics policy here.