Age of Empires 4 has a new roadmap – and not too many players anymore. That’s also because of what has (not) happened since release.

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“Another victory like that & we’re doomed!” These are the traditional, somewhat terse words of Pyrrhos, King of Epirus, after a battle won in 279 BC against the Romans.

In 2021, we at GlobalESportNews described the release of Age of Empires 4 as the “decisive battle of real-time strategy”. A battle that the hopeful had quite obviously won with a demo score of 86.

But now, half a year later, things no longer seem so clear-cut. The player numbers are in the basement, updates are a long time coming và even the brand new roadmap is not exactly causing jubilation (faction colours as season content?).

Will Age of Empires 4 end up lượt thích the Greek king Pyrrhos? Has it won its battles but lost the war? Our multiplayer expert gets khổng lồ the bottom of the question & explains what Relic & Microsoft must vị now to lớn pull the cart out of the mud again.


Table of Contents


At release, everyone was happy

When Age of Empires 4 was released, everyone was generally agreed that they had a successful representative of the real-time strategy genre in front of them. The animations caused some displeasure, the campaign with its historical films was a bit divisive & there were also a few bugs. Nevertheless, we at GlobalESportNews, just lượt thích most gamers, were quite satisfied.

After what other big publishers had done lớn big game brands (including Age of Empires) over the years, everyone was glad that Relic Entertainment and Microsoft had remembered the basic virtues of the series. This was then also reflected in the satisfactory player numbers. Well-known streamers và pro gamers from Age of Empires 2 & Starcraft 2 switched khổng lồ the new beacon of hope.

The first tournaments revealed major flawsWhile ordinary people played the campaign and took their first steps in multiplayer, the best of the best went at each other’s virtual throats in the first high-paying tournaments – and of course exploits và balance problems were revealed.

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The minimap is still a weak point. In games with more than two players, it quickly becomes extremely confusing.But that’s the way it is with new strategy games. These were teething problems that Relic would quickly giảm giá khuyến mãi with – or so we thought. Stupidly, we thought wrong. Because even fixes for obviously fun-destroying strategies lượt thích the Mongolian Town Centre Rush or serious bugs (spearmen, prelates, animation cancelling, attack speed) were weeks and months in coming.While the pure single-player players were slowly through with the game anyway (who plays skirmish against the AI in the long run?), the frustration of the multiplayer lovers increased with every week. Even the published roadmap did not promise any gigantic progress. The most notable feature for the future was the Ranked mode, which has still not appeared.

Players are running away – because too little is happening

Despite that, we weren’t worried. Relic wouldn’t want to lớn rush anything & would polish the game at its leisure. But now, after several months, it looks more lượt thích the developers have fallen asleep or are busy with Company of Heroes 3. The latter was announced before the release of Age of Empires 4, which even then gave the disconcerting feeling that they actually preferred to work on their own house brand.

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These statistics of Age of Empires 4 player numbers speak volumes.And so, over the course of the new year, AoE4’s player numbers have plummeted almost underground, at least for such an ambitious game. Normalos as well as streamers & professional players are turning their backs on the game, many are going back lớn Part 2.

This raises the question: Can Age of Empires 4 still be saved? and what does the flagship of the battered RTS armada need lớn pick up steam again?

The 2022 roadmap nội dung is not enough

The developers are probably putting their planned leadership year updates. In this context, a new roadmap was presented at the beginning of March. In it, the first season of the Ranked Mode is finally promised as well as various overdue unique of Life features. The latter refers khổng lồ small improvements in the controls, the interface and the settings.

But is that enough to lớn bring players back lớn Age of Empires 4? Will a global series, the patrolling command, selectable colours và a new “Art of War” challenge persuade anyone khổng lồ give the game another chance?

Ranked mode is unlikely to get much traction either. It’s not lượt thích players are leaving for another trò chơi because they can’t get a rank in the ladder (besides, there’s already a rank chart on Age of Empires 4’s official website). Players quit because they don’t enjoy the trò chơi anymore. A ranked mode is just a candy on vị trí cao nhất of the cake và not part of the dough.

More relevant, on the other hand, could be the thẻ selection system. After all, excluding unpopular maps from the outset might be a real argument for some.

Even more important, of course, are the modding tools. Exactly what these will look like and what opportunities will be available to the hard-working community members remains khổng lồ be seen, but at least this announcement promises new nội dung for the single-player faction.