Wololo!
Yes, wololo indeed. Today Microsoft revealed a lot of information on Age of Empires 4. We’ve got two introduction videos to new civilizations, a campaign preview and a lengthy gameplay reveal.
So, if you want to watch the entire Age of Empires show yourself, then make sure to click on the video below.
Gameplay
Relic Entertainment and World’s Edge have been perfecting a balancing act between old and new it seems. Age of Empires IV looks to become a perfect mix of Age of Empires II and everything that has happened in the genre since 1999. During the show we got a lengthy gameplay trailer which included four civilizations, two of which were revealed during the show. More on that later. A 5 minute gameplay reveal showed Microsoft’s and Relic’s intentions with Age of Empires 4. It feels like a natural evolution of Age of Empires II, with beautiful hills and cliffs in 3D which can be used in-game to take advantage, castle walls which can be manned by soldiers, the ability to ambush by hiding in trees. All in all it feels like a modern real time strategy game. There will be naval battles too and it seems we’ll be Wololo’ing our way through armies, as can be seen at the end of the gameplay trailer.
Civilizations & campaigns
Age of Empires IV will have 8 unique civilizations. We now know about four of them. The English, the Chinese, the Mongols and the Delhi Sultanate. Each civilization will play very differently to the others, the Mongols for example will be able to pack up camp and move their town somewhere else. Relic calls this ‘asymetrical’ where there are some units which are shared among all civilizations, but also core differences.
There will be four different campaigns in Age of Empires IV. Today we saw a glimpse of the Norman campaign. Different than previous campaigns, the new campaigns focus on a longer slice of history for a certain civilization. The campaigns will be filled with documentary style videos to fill in the gaps and tell more of the backstory. There will be 3 hours of those documentaries in total.
A closed beta has been announced for Age of Empires IV. Players can join AgeofEmpires.com to sign up to become an insider. The full release of Age of Empires IV will be this Fall.
