


There are some themes and interesting observations we used to develop the style and presentation. “ The amount of depth brought to units and buildings for each civ was really challenging and exciting more unique architecture and detail embellishment when the player ages up. Part of telling those stories is through the game’s single player campaign, which the team calls “Hands on History.” “ We’re fond of saying ‘history is only as interesting as the people who taught it to you.’ Our goal was to “humanize history” through our “Hands on History” videos and give players something deeper as part of the campaign to help them understand how the past connects to modern times and the people that lived it.” Of course, Age of Empire IV’s attention to detail shines through in its art and graphics. We also worked with linguists to ensure period-appropriate unit speech, as well as historians, weapon and armor experts, and many more.”Īrt, Artifacts and Getting Your Hands on History We use high-quality documentary films to frame missions – either tracing the historical narrative or diving into interesting details of life at the time. “To do that, we’ve worked with experts across many fields and many countries to present an authentic context for our missions and the lives of the people involved. “ It was important to us that the team do justice by the cultures represented in the game because representation and identity in gaming matters not just for our community but for the world at large,” the developers said. World cultures and their contributions to history, their struggles, and complexities are more obvious, and old approaches to telling their stories aren’t going to work. Of course, a lot has changed over the past two decades.

Relic Entertainment has just released - 16 years after the last installment - Age of Empires IV, and we talked to the development team about some of the challenges and successes they’ve encountered as they moved their game from conception to completion. Combining accessibility with near-endless strategic depth and replayability, it’s not hard to understand why. The Age of Empires franchise (which also included spinoff Age of Mythology) is one of the most popular series of real-time strategies ever made, both with casual fans and competitive players.
