That makes sense from a marketing point of view, but it does mean that the game is fundamentally ill-equipped to revive the real-time strategy genre, or even just Age Of Empires itself, as it’s still, very purposefully, the same game as always.Īlthough Age Of Empires always took things more seriously than the sci-fi schlock of Command & Conquer, or the fantasy melodrama of Warcraft, if you’ve played any real-time strategy before you’ve already played Age Of Empires 4. As you might expect, Age Of Empires 4 reverses historical direction, and you’ll be just as unsurprised to learn that this is a remake of Age Of Empires 2 in all but name. Years before Xbox existed, it was also a rare example of Microsoft publishing a traditional video game, with them even going so far as to buy original developer Ensemble Studios a few years later.Įach of the original Age Of Empires games saw a linear progression through history, with the first game going from stone to iron age, the first sequel covering the Middle Ages, and the third going all the way up to the late 19th century.

The original Age Of Empires was released in 1997, right in the middle of the genre’s golden age – although it was its sequel that was the franchise’s real gem and is still remembered today as one of the best examples of its type. The reason? As good as they were almost every game played exactly the same, whether it was set in deep space or the ancient world. And yet within little more than five years the genre was essentially dead.

Age Of Empires 4 – it feels old-fashioned in more ways than one (pic: Microsoft)Īfter 16 years the Age Of Empires franchise finally gets a new sequel but is the latest entry too similar to the old ones – or not enough?įollowing the release of Command & Conquer in 1995 real-time strategy games became the most popular game type on the PC, with every Western publisher in the world rushing to make one.

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