Age of Empires 4 Preview: Modern Middle Ages - "This Is Going to Be a Wire Rope Act"

17 Nov

17Nov

Even before we first saw gameplay from Age of Empires 4, we talked to the developers. AoE 4 becomes AoE 2 - in modern!

Age of Empires 4 is set in the Middle Ages,offers the finest 3D graphics with height differences and aims to set new dramaturgical standards in the real-time strategy genre with its story campaigns.
GameStar spoke to the creative minds at Xbox Game Studios about AoE4, got to see the first gameplay trailer before everyone else - and explained in the big preview what's new and promising in Age of Empires 4.
We will tell you the most important information about the new medieval strategy game: There are so many resources and ages, these are the new civilizations, and so much different they are.
Also, after reading, you'll know why Age of Empires 4 doesn't have a release date yet - and why Microsoft and Relic took extra time to perfect technology and engine.

Sometimes it surprises me how well known GameStar is all over the world. Chris Rubyor, Design Director at Xbox Game Studios and the new real-time strategy developer World's Edge, remembers Jörg Langer and Martin Deppe well.

For both have visited the game smithies over the past 25 years, where Rubyor has worked on RTS beads such as Command & Conquer, Star Wars: Empire at War or The Lord of the Rings: Battle of Middle-earth.

Now Rubyor Age of Empires 4, along with Relic Entertainment, the creators of Company of Heroes,is giving the finishing touches - and he's not the only developer involved in this mammoth project who made the genre great in the 90s and early 2000s.

However, AoE4 faces a much more difficult task than all the old classics: It aims to pull the real-time strategy out of the crisis, modernize the mix of base building and giant battles, kiss a sleepy genre and inspire millions of potential RTS players.

And for that, Age of Empires 4 returns to arguably the most popular scenario in the series: the Middle Ages

Age of Empires 4 becomes like AoE2, but prettier

Adam Isgreen can't wait. He wants me to see the first gameplay trailer of AoE4 in front of all the other journalists and viewers of the XO event in London on November 14, 2019. Isgreen, his character Creative Director for the entire franchise, sits me on the eve of the show in opposite a restaurant, between us the starter plate. He pulls out his phone.

"Woe!" shannon Loftis threatens him. The studio manager of World's Edge, Microsoft's new RTS department, can't believe it: "It's not okay to show the game to the very first person outside the studio on a mobile phone!" Adam Isgreen grins remorsefully: "Yes, okay, you probably don't want to see this beautiful 4K trailer on my little smartphone display." Then they show me Age of Empires 4 on a laptop - and it looks like the best of Age of Empires 2 in modern 3D.