Xbox dropped a gameplay teaser for the upcoming fourth installment in the Age of Empires series. Given that the teaser was only a minute long, it didn’t do much more than whet some appetites and fuel the coal engine of the massive hype train.
Creative Director Adam Isgreen went (relatively) in-depth on a number of topics in a four-minute interview with IGN’s Matt Purslow. He discussed things like time periods, playable nations, and loose plans for the future.
In terms of the time period of the game, players will be returning to the Medieval ages once again, though he describes it as a slightly larger time period than previous games. Specifically, Isgreen states that the game will take place between the Medieval period and just before the Renaissance age.
Depending on how you look at history, that’s about eight hundred years or so. Technically, the Medieval Age blended with the Renaissance around the 1300s, so if that’s our endpoint we’ll get to see a wonderful, rich history of dozens of empires.
And in terms of those empires, Isgreen also gave a few hints on what nations we can expect to see, as well as what sets them apart from each other and their versions in previous games. For example, in the gameplay teaser, we see an English settlement about to be attacked by a Mongolian army.
If you’ve played the Age of Empires series, you’ll notice that the English buildings and units look remarkably similar in terms of design, providing some sense of comfort and maybe even nostalgia. With the encroaching Mongolian army, you see an extremely mobile and large force that contains familiar types of units but nothing quite the same as what we’ve seen before.
“The Mongols are probably one of our most extremely unique civilizations compared to what people have played before in Age of Empires,” Isgreen states. “So where the English are going to play very familiar, the Mongols – yeah, you’re not playing the same way you played Age of Empires before.”
This level of variance in available play styles is exciting, and it’ll be interesting to see how Relic Entertainment brings these nations to life. Given the massive focus on historical accuracy where a nation is concerned, it makes sense that nations would play incredibly different – nomadic nations shouldn’t play the same as isolationist island nations, and it’s wonderful to see that they’re bringing that into play.
While there hasn’t been a release date given yet, it hopefully won’t be too long until we get to craft our empires.
