This review originally appeared on IGN Middle East
Age of Empires is a franchise that has seen years of dedication and following from fans. From the early days of playing against friends via the magic of dial-up modems, Age of Empires is real-time strategy at its finest. The rush to quickly build up an army and crush your opponents is one that you never get tired of, and the battle for supremacy over resources or key map locations will keep you going to the bitter end.
It’s no surprise then, that Microsoft has finally added to the Age of Empires legacy with Age of Empires IV. Relic Entertainment takes over the development reins from the much-loved but long-gone Ensemble Studios (RIP), and though the company has a strong background in RTS games, Age of Empires IV feels like a very safe release, playing more like a remake of Age of Empires II. That’s not necessarily a bad thing of course, but if you’re hungry for a completely new Age of Empires experience, then you’re going to be left waiting some more.
As with any Age of Empires game, civilizations play an important role. Age of Empires IV introduces eight new ones – the Chinese, Delhi Sultanate, English, Mongols, French, Abbasid Dynasty, Holy Roman Empire, and Rus. The single player campaign focuses on four of these – English, Mongols, French, and Rus, while the other four civilizations can be experienced in the game’s multiplayer skirmishes. Each campaign is roughly about ten missions long, with each mission taking anywhere between twenty to forty minutes to finish on the game’s normal difficulty.
What Relic has done really well with Age of Empires IV is to make each campaign a live storytelling of key events through the ages, complete with stunning live-action cinematics. Whether you’re flying over the castles of England or spanning the vast landscapes of the Mongolian Empire, you’ll not want to skip these incredibly detailed cutscenes. Another interesting change is that the game continues to narrate the storyline as you play through key objectives in each mission, further adding to the storytelling nature of the game. It’s a methodical yet engaging practice, and really makes you feel like you’re not only reliving important parts of history, but getting a front-row seat to some of the most important decisions ever made in history.
Each civilization has its own unique perks and advantages, and it’s hard to honestly pick a favourite. With each campaign, you’ll discover how the civilization rose to its legendary status, and learn all of the tricks and battle plays necessary to conquer your enemies. How you choose to conquer them of course, is up to you – do you strategically take out supply routes so the enemy can’t deploy more troops? Or do you hold position at your base until you have a might army that can crush anything in its path? Or, given the chance, do you diplomatically pay tribute to an enemy to stop raids on your town? The choices are many, and there will always be more than one way to command the battlefield.
As you play through each of the four campaigns, you’ll learn the strengths of each civilization, and hone them to your advantage. The English for example, pride themselves in their Longbowmen, who are easily able to rain down arrows on enemies long before they have a chance to reach you. An added bonus in Age of Empires IV is the ability to now mount units on top of your walls, so a row of archers standing guard at your city gates is a good first line of defence. The hardened Mongols on the other hand, tap into their nomadic roots with the ability to relocate their structures anywhere on the map, making it easy to move to resource-rich areas or reposition to a new strategic location near an enemy camp. Through each campaign you’ll learn the basics of war and which units are strong or weak against other unit types. This will come easily to players familiar with previous instalments in the series, but for new players this is a huge help. There are even tooltips that pop up during gameplay based on your actions, and can recommend strategies and ways to turn the tide of battle.
And battle it is you must, for as much fun as it is to amass a massive army, you can’t hide behind your city walls forever. The sheer sight of your army getting into formation as you march towards an enemy is pure bliss, and the game quickly allows you to change formations and groups to better manage your attacks. There can be some occasional hiccups with pathfinding, as units attempt to climb over each other to reach an enemy or point, so it really is best if you break up your army into smaller, more manageable groups to make it easier for them to direct.
As certain key characters emerge in each campaign, you’ll get to control these iconic leaders in your army and take them with you into battle. They offer a few extra abilities you can use – for example being able to rally nearby troops to fight harder, or even heal them over time. Getting to direct Joan of Arc to lead the French army was certainly a thrilling experience, and one you’ll get to enjoy with each of the different campaigns.
Reinforcements are always a welcome in any battle, and one great improvement in Age of Empires IV is that your infantry can now build certain support units right in the battlefield. Battering rams can be assembled in a few minutes, making it easy to break through enemy walls. Certain civilizations can even build powerful siege weapons right on the battlefield, helping to turn the tide of war during pivotal moments.
One area where the game does seem to falter is with unit interaction, and this makes the battles less thrilling than they could be. Take for example the English cavalry, who can charge into battle and are excellent at countering certain units. In a real war, charging cavalry would be able to do some damage to infantry as they raced through their ranks, disrupting their positions and opening them up to attacks. But in the game, this isn’t portrayed in the same way. Your cavalry will still rush up towards your enemies, but will then abruptly stop in front of them and start hacking away with swords and spears. Age of Empires has never really been about being too close to real-world mechanics, but it would have been nice if certain attacks triggered different animations to denote the different unit attacks. Whether you’re killing an enemy with an arrow or the fiery wrath of a catapult, the death animation is the same, which makes it a bit underwhelming. Even when you zoom into the battlefield to witness the action, it doesn’t quite feel as satisfactory as it should be.
Age of Empires IV also makes it much easier to manage your villagers and economy, doing away with a lot of the micromanagement that plagued earlier games. You can now build farms that automatically replenish themselves, making for an infinite supply of food that can be harvested by your villagers. Villagers will also now automatically get to work based on a structure they’ve just completed – set up a lumber camp and the assigned villagers will build it, and then set to work automatically chopping down trees.
Other advantages come in the form of influence – certain buildings and landmarks will grant bonuses to your army or production, making it even more efficient to maintain a strong economy. Whether it’s from taxes that lead to increased gold or a network of citadels that can alert you to approaching enemies, there are a lot of great bonuses that you can harness to improve your chances of winning. The Mongols are an excellent example of this – place unit buildings next to their sacred Ovoo (which automatically mines stone for you) and you can use stone to build two of the same unit without affecting the production time.
A nice addition to Age of Empires IV over its previous games are a huge number of documentary videos that you unlock as you complete each mission. These go into great detail about weaponry, trade, religion, and many other topics, and are a lot of fun to watch. You can also unlock historical information about key characters and battles, which further presses Age of Empires IV’s agenda to teach some history as you play through the game – we’re not complaining.
Graphically the game looks good, but this isn’t a game that you’re rushing to play in 4K at 200fps. While there are some nice subtle animations in some of the buildings and units, the models themselves aren’t very detailed, and that takes away from the immersion of the game. While the battles and cities you fight in are vast to explore, the overall look is just like something you’d be playing in the early 2000s, rather than something that reflects the capabilities of today’s modern game mechanics. But perhaps that’s what Age of Empires has always been – a game that sacrifices realism and detail in favour of fun, strategic battles. Performance-wise, the game ran smoothly at the highest graphics settings, with the occasional exception of some cinematics stuttering slightly during playback.
For those who finish the single-player campaigns (easily at least 10 hours’ worth in total), you can dive into The Art of War challenges, which makes a return here as well. These short missions test your skills across a variety of scenarios, and are suited for both new and seasoned players. The true test of course, comes when you dive into multiplayer against either AI or real opponents.
Age of Empires IV doesn’t break away from the franchise’s roots, and that can either be a good or a bad thing. New players will enjoy the subtle hand-holding that the game offers, as well as accessible difficulty options. Experienced RTS players will enjoy the challenging AI levels, but will recognize that there’s not a lot here to mark this as an entirely new Age of Empires game. Relic has indeed played it safe in order to not break away from a tried and test formula, so if you’re looking for Age of Empires action to enjoy in 2021, this is the game to go to.