Age of Empires IV

REAL-TIME STRATEGY

SO MUCH TIME has passed since the last Age of Empires release, one that wasn't a remake or a definitive edition, the chances are that anyone reading this hasn’t played a game in the series, or at least hasn’t thought about it for a long time.

Things have changed a lot over the past 16 years. Series originator Ensemble Studios is no more, replaced by Relic Entertainment (, ) and World’s Edge, an internal Microsoft studio set up to look after . Things have also changed outside of the development studio, especially. The two series overlap in more than just timeframe, with Creative Assembly’s behemoth pushing the boundaries in terms of units on-screen and, more recently, fire and magical effects.