Age of Empires 4, The Review: A Legend of the RTS genre is back

Age of Empires 4 is a double leap in history. That of video games, since it represents the highly anticipated return of a series

that has written an important page in the medium and which for too long had not seen the release of a new official chapter. But also the one with a capital S, since the RTS mechanics are, as per tradition, put at the service of a stage that takes us back to some of the most iconic and fascinating eras.

Microsoft for this very welcome return, to be released on October 28 on PC, obviously also available for all Game Pass subscribers, relied on Relic, an ultra-veteran developer of the genre who needed a polish after a few not-so-brilliant years. The result is a title that will certainly be able to give dozens of hours of fun to fans, very well finished and equipped with some interesting ideas, even at a narrative level. At the same time, playing every now and then one wonders if it really took sixteen years, many have passed since the arrival on the shelves of the third chapter, for a product that could have been the same as it was released in 2021, even a few years ago. This is not necessarily a critical issue, but given the long development and the result of the team behind it, which had imposed itself at the beginning of its path for innovative and breaking ideas, I would have expected something more.

However, it is not my intention to make the review of Age of Empires 4 an invitation not to try the title, on the contrary I’m sure that once the campaigns are finished and made acquainted with all eight civilizations through the Skirmish mode, the mix of a multiplayer sector full of potential and future updates will guarantee him a path full of satisfactions.

FROM WEST TO EAST: FOUR CAMPAIGNS TO PLAY

Age of Empires 4 offers four campaigns that unfold over forty missions and offer as many different perspectives: the first two, The Normans and The Hundred Years War, dedicated respectively to the English and French, are very classic and at times represent almost a sort of continuation of the short tutorial that introduces you to the game; the second, The Mongol Empire and The Rise of Moscow, are more interesting, partly for the mechanics that characterize the two factions, partly because they finally get the gameplay off the ground and offer more complex situations.

However, the four difficulty levels offer an excellent variety and, above all by choosing the last one, the challenge becomes very demanding (remember to also use the manual saving, in short). Good news because in terms of objectives, the missions are largely those already known to fans of the genre : more standard situations, with their own economy to be developed and the map to be occupied slowly, alternate with others a little more dynamic., with ambushes and retreats, sieges to complete and positions to defend within scenarios that give a limited number of resources or time to take home victory.

Variety, however, is not synonymous with novelty, and this is what is missing a bit from my point of view. Perhaps Relic could have tried something new in the way the campaign is structured, as did for example Blizzard in the days of StarCraft 2, instead it is limited to a very good succession of missions. A nice content, in short, but not memorable.

Instead, the narration made through in-game passages is very interesting but above all the mix of live action movies and computer graphics : seeing castles, ruins, plains and mountains that come to life with the battles we have just finished fighting is very suggestive and it was objectively made a productive effort out of the ordinary. There are also documents and insights into the history of civilizations: they are extras, but very well done and a welcome (optional) break between games.

GRAPHICS AND SOUND

Technically, Age of Empires 4 is meant to be scalable, which isn’t to say it doesn’t look good. The animations of the inhabitants constructing the buildings, the plants with their different colors, the way the structures integrate with the map… the Relic game is very well done. Personally I would have preferred a more realistic and less colorful look, but it is a solution chosen only for rendering, there are no animations or funny situations, so the seriousness of the events told does not lose its pathos. Apart from some sporadic bugs in the interactions between the units, however negligible, no problems are noticed.

I played Age of Empires 4 on a laptop equipped with an AMD Ryzen 7 5800H, 16 GB of Ram and an Nvidia GeForce RTX 3070 – the game always felt smooth and was clearly designed to run on as many machines as possible.. Rather, what is missing is the ambition to give players with more performing builds options that are really able to push them to the maximum.

On the other hand, the sound sector is excellent, really the subject of a great job. It is valid from a technical point of view, with the noises that are reproduced in accordance with the position and movements of the camera, always consistent with what happens during the game. But it is also valid in terms of variety and attention to detail, with a consistent use of the various languages by the factions and an uncommon attention to all details.

CONCLUSIONS

Everything in Age of Empires 4 brings to mind the previous chapters, especially the second from which we clearly started for this welcome return. The fights are subject to the classic paper – scissor – stone dynamics of the genre, units and constructions make us take a leap into the past of the series, the eras follow one another one building after another. It does not give the idea of being something new, but the novelties that exist and work; otherwise the game proposes the charm of the series in a guise suitable for 2021.

The idea is to support it as a modern title, with daily missions and objectives, an account progression system and content in progress, but the heart of the experience is the known one. Which is good, not least because the product was built with great wisdom, but we wouldn’t mind a little extra courage.

Can the “lack of courage” in a judgment be quantified? I asked myself the question a bit, because after all 16 years is a long time and the Definitive Editions had already returned to what the series has offered in the past, but all in all I think there is enough to see and play to recommend it. The problems are minimal, the hours of potential fun really many : it deserves the time it takes to assimilate the principles, if you have no experience with the series, while the veterans will see their favorite franchise take a (albeit not gigantic) step forward.