Age of Empires 4 Review

"Epic Historic Battles"

Campaign

October 25, 2021 at 1:01am
By Jason Stettner

I’ve been waiting one seriously long time for a new entry in this series and I’m very happy to note that this is a true successor for the franchise. It’s been over fifteen years since we’ve had a fresh release and while nostalgic, the definitive editions have only increased my hunger for a brand new release.

With that, we have a true fourth expansion to the series that has a return to history with over five hundred years of conflict and story to work through. The narrative features thirty-five distinct missions that I dabbled in that tell unique perspectives. From the Mongol hordes tackling Asia to Joan of Arc in her quest against the English.

It’s got a lot going on, with full voice over work and truly epic documentary like cinematics that tell us what’s going on. If you’ve got the display for it this live action cinematic points can be presented in a 4k resolution with HDR support. They help set the stage and that voice continues to describe details as the missions progress.

This is a very chunky campaign, for those that really love this aspect you’ll find a lot to do here. If you’re newer I do suggest some lower difficulty choices as you may find it quite challenging. For veterans, you’ll feel right at home. I’ll also mention there are some tutorial type options in a separate menu area if you’re new.

Skirmishes

For me, the most enticing element of the experience is just local skirmish matches. Battles that I setup locally with up to eight players at once using any combination of the eight factions that are present. You can tune difficulties, setup win conditions such as wonders or just domination and even shrine holding. From there you can adjust the world design, even have a seed to use to share the experience.

It’s where I spent most of my time, I’ve always loved the replay elements of this mode and it’s delightful to battle with different scenarios at play. This element of the game, at least for me was always where I most enjoyed my time in past entries and I felt that excitement once again within this game’s skirmish mode.

Multiplayer

This is the online component where you can show off against others, or even play with them. Compete against folks with many scenario options or even invite friends for specific matches if you’d like to. There’s also coop against the AI if you want to get some PVE going on if the PVP seems to be too much for you.

This is an area where you can also sink some time in if you want to learn more intense combative strategies or just face off against the very best online to claim glory for your ranks. It’ll be interesting to see how folks react to this one and if it’s a new place of the growth for the series in the modern era.

Gameplay

This is that classic RTS (real time strategy) action that the franchise is known for. You can command absolutely massive armies with hundreds of troops while also needing to tend for your growing town. You’ll command villagers to gather the core materials; wood, food, gold and stone using a variety of methods to do so. You’ll then build various structures to help further expand your territory.

From offensive options such as stables and siege tools. To home care such as farms and gathering sites. Then there’s the defensive tools to create new dynamic walls that are ever so satisfying to see crumble under the might of foes. It’s got some simplistic, yet complex elements to how you manage things. There are even upgrade options such as getting a blacksmith setup or perhaps a university to research advanced improvements.

Then there’s the market for trading items, the previously described elements are somewhat essential items if you’re coming from a previous entry. When it comes to tactical play it’s easy to setup your troops for conflict and doing so is essential now as more intensive methods are needed to truly handle large scale war scenarios. You’ll need to setup your troops in efficient ways or they’re likely to get demolished and it can take awhile to build formidable forces up once again.

When it comes to the visuals I was impressed by the range of options and the performance that was present. It looks very detailed, with neat yellow like figures that mark construction and help show a changing of time. It looks really awesome, and can be very dynamic as you watch the environment crumble during large scale siege invasions. It’ll also get more exciting and weird when mod support arrives in early 2022 as you can imagine the fun the community will have with that feature.

The Conclusion

Age of Empires 4 is the true successor that we’ve been waiting ever so long for. It’s a perfect continuation that builds upon what made this series so special, while also making it accessible for new players. Veterans will love the more complex elements of tactical meta that are present, while new players will find it easier to get into. You get a stack of content whether you’re working through the expansive campaign or just battling in skirmish.

You can’t forget the multiplayer that should expand your experience even further if you’d like it to. This is great for scaling to new different skill levels and it was such a blast to dive into. I think this truly did hit the mark, being something that they can continue to grow from. They got the core style right here, it feels familiar yet fresh being a safe yet awesome upgrade upon the legacy of this legendary real time strategy franchise.

Read our Age of Empires 2: Definitive Edition Review
View our Age of Empires Hub

Age of Empires 4 Review on PC
Review Code Provided by Microsoft

Rating Overall: 10