Age of Empires IV

The game if you'd never played an AOE previously would be considered very good. However as a long standing player of the series it gets a couple of things quite "wrong" so to speak. The cinematics are great in the cutscenes and storytelling narrative good. Gameplay wise it's ok, the new functions for selecting groups is helpful however the flashy animations are often too much for multiplayer play and there's items missing like visible waypoints where you've sent troops. Story mode is playable, but for online multiplayer the 20 year old AOE 2 still comes out on top for speed and simplicity of the animations and micromanaging troops. The placing of building is about 50/50 where again there's nice aspects but lacking aspects which make it cleaner for the user.

Age of empires 4 is a game out of time. In reality it's a reimagining of the second game on the core series, AOE2. It's not a true sequel and lacks much of what I'd expect from a modern sequel.

The graphics are okay, the presentation is okay, definitely reminds me of the history based games we saw 20 years ago. But if I wanted a 20 year old strategy game then I'd play one.

I can't help but feel disappointed. Age of Empires 2 felt like a game trying to reach for its grand title. Age of Empires 3 felt like it was trying to justify the Empire tag, with all its dark colonial exploitation. Age of empires 4 feels like a village builder. You're not powerful, or an empire. You don't feel the ages as strongly either. It's quite frankly a bit of a disappointing mess.

It strikes me that either the Devs forgot this was a sequel, or perhaps hoped to cash in on nostalgia before it's players discovered in the second hour of gameplay that this is just AOE2, with a little more shine, and hills. I just don't care enough about the changes. They're tiny and you'll look over them immediately, because there is no impact.

It's not a bad game, because age of empires 2 isn't a bad game. But it's nothing more. A tiny fraction of what 3 innovated on, 4 has kept. We're talking tiny slithers, trade routes. It's not enough, unjustifiably so. I'd recommend you try if you have game pass on PC. But it's not worth even half its price tag, I'd maybe pay £10?

I was at secondary school when AOE2 was released. I was at college for AOE3. Decades later I'm a grown man that's experienced a whole world of exploration and excitement. AOE4 just cannot keep up with that. The world has changed a great deal, so has technology. AOE4 may as well be Monopoly. We've all played a better alternative priced at half the price.