Ultimately, Age of Empires IV’s value to you depends on what you expect from a historical strategy game in 2021, particularly not after the spectacle we’ve seen in more than a dozen Total War games that have launched since Age of Empires II came out.

There’s plenty to dig into on the multiplayer and skirmish mode front, as it happens, This is a series of timed challenges that provide hands-on lessons in RTS fundamentals as applied to Age IV.

Age of Empires IV acknowledges this with an impressively well-produced series of documentary videos and adds valuable context for the abstracted action you find throughout Age of Empire IV’s 35 single-player campaign missions.

One of the most beloved real-time strategy games returns to glory with Age of Empires IV, putting you at the center of epic historical battles that shaped the world.