Age of Empires IV is a great RTS experience, but it fails to distinguish itself sufficiently from Age of Empires 2.
The king is back. It’s been 16 years since the release of the last numbered entry in the Age of Empires franchise, the underappreciated and often forgotten Age of Empires III. However, Age of Empires has remained a household name among RTS enthusiasts.
Age of Empires II: Age of Kings and its expansion, The Conquerors, are still deeply regarded within strategy nerds’ hearts. A couple of years back, the release of its definitive edition created an extended experience embracing the modding community.
Now, in 2021, we finally see the return of the franchise, not only with a brand-new entry but an actual return to its core, to the roots of what made Age of Empires II great in the first place. Is Age of Empires IV the game that will bring back the glory days of the RTS genre? Let’s find out.
First, let’s address the war elephant in the room. The ensemble did not create an Age of Empires IV, as they ceased to exist a while back. No, it’s not the fabled fourth entry in the series that will take on a more modern approach to warfare.
Instead, Age of Empires IV is a kind of soft reboot for the franchise, disregarding the ancient era. The game doubles back on what Age of Empires III tried to build and focuses on the rather well-proven formula that made Age of Empires II pass the test of time.
The game centers on the medieval era, and you can advance your civilizations toward the verge of the Renaissance with the utilization of gunpowder in the West. There are only eight civilizations to choose from: English, French, Mongols, Rus, the Holy Roman Empire, Chinese, the Delhi Sultanate, and the Abbasid Dynasty.
And, yes, these are five less than those present in Age of Empires 2 and 10 less than those in the Conqueror’s expansion. This, in turn, may seem like a drawback, and to be honest, it is. The game feels a bit empty and underwhelming when you are presented only with a limited number of civilizations.
But then you remember this is 2021, and everything is meant to be taken as a platform, a live service, or a starting point on which content is constantly delivered. There is a significant chance Age of Empires IV only comes with these, let’s call them, base civilizations, and that more will come along the way in the form of DLC, a season pass, an expansion, add-ons, or whatever you might want to call it.
The civilizations themselves play sort of the same, with obvious cosmetic, historical, and strategic differences, but gameplay-wise, there is not a lot of difference between the French and the English, for instance, and this becomes especially obvious when you are tasked with managing both in the first two campaigns.
There is, however, a glimpse of innovation in the way the Mongols work. Just like the Huns in Age of Empires 2, the Mongols are nomadic tribes that do not need to build housing constructions.
Instead, they can pack their buildings, the camp, if you will, and are free to roam and settle in a new place in search of better resources or a better tactical position. This is a stroke of genius and makes you wonder what could have happened if Relic had played it a little bit less safe with the general gameplay.
Graphically, you get the best of both worlds in the Age of Empires IV. The game is packed with cinematics in which you get to know the history of the battle that’s about to take place. As if it were a documentary, you get beautiful real-world shots of historical places and mix them with a brief history class on tactics, technology, or just a sense of how the world is now compared to how it was in the past.
It’s awesome, and more games should incorporate that sense of cinematography in their cutscenes. On the other hand, the game gets the short straw in terms of graphical advancements; Age of Empires IV gets a little.
Yes, it is a juggernaut compared to its predecessors, but it seems lackluster if compared to games of the Total War series in terms of graphical achievements, details, and overall scope. However, this is obviously by design. The fact that the game includes a minimum specs mode tells you that the studio wanted to create an experience accessible to everyone, even those players who still boot up their old PC to play Age of Empires 2 via LAN parties.
The game is not demanding at all, and it welcomes all kinds of gamers who are not at all deterred from getting on such a game because of technical limitations. And this is another stroke of genius on their part.
The game itself is not a carbon copy of Age of Empires 2, but the fact that this game keeps coming up is a tell-tale sign of what the studio was aiming for. The control scheme is almost identical, so the game feels suitable for someone who played Age of Empires 2.
The way building, gathering, exploring, and fighting work is almost the same, except for a few very welcome additions to the gameplay, like the fact that you can post troops on the walls or use war ladders to storm such walls.
And this is not a complaint; quite the contrary. Veterans of the genre will feel like riding a bike after a few years of letting it succumb to rust in the garage, and newcomers will discover the same rusting bicycle and be fascinated by it, restore it to its former glory, and give it a spin with a new coat of paint.
Age of Empires IV is a great RTS experience, but it fails to distinguish itself just enough from Age of Empires 2. Maybe when we learn the actual roadmap for the game, we will know it will receive enough content to distance itself from its big brother. Nevertheless, the game is an amazing experience for anyone who likes building empires or tearing them down.
