Age Of Empires 4 Xbox Review

On the whole, it has been a successful year for Xbox when you sit back and look at the catalogue of games in 2023. If you said to me a couple of years ago that we would see the Age Of Empires titles on Xbox consoles, I wouldn’t have believed you. Last year we received the fantastic news that Age Of Empires 2 Definitive Edition and Age Of Empires 4 would both be coming to Xbox alongside Xbox Game Pass. As a real-time strategy lover, I was absolutely ecstatic with this news but I was even more blown away when we had a shadow drop during Gamescom 2023 in Cologne, Germany.

Personally, I’d lost sight of Age Of Empires 4 coming to Xbox this year, simply because the gaming calendar looks super congested at the tail endtee of 2023. Team Xbox do like to drop a pleasant surprise every now and then though and after the success of Hi-Fi Rush earlier this year, it seems to go down well. After giving Age Of Empires 2 Definitive Edition full marks back in February with my review, I was gagging to get going with this one.

Unfortunately, I was away from home when I watched the live announcement of the shadow drop on Opening Night Live from Gamescom. So while I had a huge surge of excitement, I was left deflated as I couldn’t get hands-on with it properly until that weekend. Admittedly I lost patience and dived into getting the tutorials done over the cloud and it is a game that functions well from a mobile device.

The teams at Relic Entertainment and World’s Edge have only gone and done it again! They have absolutely nailed the fluidity and feel of the game with an Xbox controller. Some may be thinking, can I play the game with a mouse and keyboard and the answer is absolutely you can. But if you’re like me and want the comfort of your own armchair, then pad in hand is the way to go and the game handles superbly. Many RTS games on consoles don’t quite get it right but the king of the genre comes in clutch again and retains the crown. If you’re coming to this after playing Age 2 on Xbox, then you’ll become immediately accustomed to the controller.

For newcomers though and those who simply want a refresh fear not, for there is a tutorial. This transitions to the main campaign and will hold your hand through the mechanics and how to navigate the plethora of build options. Everything is mostly selected and handled from the radial menus specially crafted to cater for console players. I managed to squeeze in just over 20 hours across the Campaign, various Skirmishes and ranked multiplayer matches.

After the tutorial you’ll get to go deep into the realms of history with epic stories like The Norman Conquest of England, the Rise Of Moscow, the Hundred Years War between the French and English and one I’m yet to tick off with the Mongol Empire. What blew me away with the campaigns though was not only the historic accuracy but how much work went into the narration and presentation surrounding each tale.

I was super impressed when the camera panned across the real barren fields of the area where the battle of Hastings took place. As a fan of documentaries, it felt like a real-life history lesson with some excellent real-life actors and narration. Ploughing through the four campaigns will easily take you over the 24-hour mark in terms of gameplay and that is at quite a speedy pace. There are some optional quests alongside your main ones should you wish to try and tick absolutely everything off.

Multiplayer matches seem to be geared towards faster bouts of play rather than long-strung-out base building. I targeted ranked matches mainly for my competitive play against human players and the ways to win are clear. Catch sacred points on each map, destroy the enemies’ landmarks or build a wonder. Everyone will have their own playstyle but mine is to base build as quickly as possible and cycle through the ages before my opponent. Prepare an army and go in for the kill. Obviously, this is all dependent on how the other player responds, but I found most of these matches to come in at just under the hour mark. Playing online isn’t something you can just dip in and play for ten minutes, you need to account for several hours.

After five placement matches, you’ll be assigned a ranking. Those used to competitive games online will know the system, bronze, silver, gold and so on. I managed to win four out of my five games and was banded as Gold II. What I loved about this was that you can spend each season playing at your own pace to try and achieve the best rank possible. The menus and UI here seem slightly easier to understand and sift through in comparison to Age Of Empires 2 Definitive Edition. Understandably though, the older version combines a couple of decades’ worth of content with far more modes. I am certain that as the game expands, more and more content will be added. Mod support is present on consoles as well and there seems to be a plethora to play around with, this is always a big plus for consoles.

What I instantly noticed throughout my time with Age Of Empires 4 was how much more freedom you have with the camera. It was surreal to be able to rotate 360 degrees around the map, something I am not used to in an AoE game. The presentation across the board is exceptional with everything displayed at a crisp 60FPS at 4k resolution. The Xbox Series X handles the game with ease and at no point did I experience any hiccups or slowdown even in the intense heat of battle with up to 400 units on screen at once. I love the fact that whilst there are some changes to accommodate the console version of the game, the entire experience is on par with the Windows PC iteration. Nothing is watered down and again we have the fully fledged experience.

Audio echoes the quality of the visuals with an epic soundtrack and the already mentioned perfect narration of the most significant historical events in mankind. There are some reused sound effects that players will recognise from the older games, but if it isn’t broken don’t fix it right? There is nothing more satisfying than hearing the battle cries of two armies going head-on into war, and here it is better than ever.

Age Of Empires 4 on Xbox is addictive, exhilarating and incredibly moreish. The entire game oozes polish from every angle and whilst it isn’t as meaty in terms of content as AoE 2 on console, it doesn’t really matter. If you’re a fan of real-time strategy then you’ll buzz off this game I guarantee it. The longevity and replayability scope is massive here and with a new expansion announced, the game will continue to grow. With two Age Of Empires titles in the same year for Xbox consoles, we have been well and truly spoilt.