too many civilisations locked behind paywalls. half or less of them are available if you buy the game and it throws popups in your face to buy the DLCs.

I really want to love this game, as evidenced by the hours played. However I feel more and more negative about it and hence cannot recommend it. The constant stream of people immediately leaving a game (or leaving at a random point in time) is unbearable, and the devs are unwilling to do anything about it. Same goes for long-standing issues (infamous out-of-sync issue, which I've seen being misused). Also for an AAA-game, how is there no re-join feature? I always feel bad when the game crashes and it may look like to others like I ran... In LoL when the game crashes you restart it and it finds you were in a game that is still running it makes it easy to re-join.

One of the best RTS out there and one of my favourite games ever. I'm giving a negative review because the announcement of the second DLC of 2025 felt like a punch in the gut after giving a lot of trust to the team. There's a lot of new content and players who only care about the mechanical part of the game will rejoice. But for me the bread and butter of the Age of Empires IP is to play and discover new empires, reigns and cultures across history. They keep adding civilizations that are dynasties/houses of already established factions in the game and the whole thing feel redundant. 9 out of the last 10 released civilizations fall into this category while they are leaving out mesoamerican, SEA and some important European countries that can easily fit into the game timeframe. Also no campaign since Sultan's Ascend DLC. The last year was a big disappoinment overall, I hope to change my review if in 2026 they will add brand new civilizations like Khmer, Castille, Incas, Poland, Lithuania...

[b]Age of Empires IV: Anniversary Edition[/b] is a visually stunning and strategically rich RTS that effectively revitalizes the franchise. If you value polished historical campaigns, diverse civs, and refined multiplayer—especially with controller support—you’ll find a lot to love. This is the most enjoyable Age of Empires experience to date! The visuals are stunning with bright colors and epic environments. It also showcases subtle yet impactful nuances of your units; pulling out torches to set enemy buildings on fire and even vivid cloud reflections on the rivers. There is an assortment of gameplay between the different civilizations ranging from European, Asian and African, even requiring different skill levels to master the differences. Offers four campaigns spanning hundreds of years, enhanced with documentary-style video segments that bring real-world context to gameplay. Eight unique civs with varied strategies—like mobile Mongol camps or Rus hunting bonuses—add...

It's a good update for classic series. Different enough from AoE2 to be it's own game, but similar enough that it does feel like the series.

Game is polluted with lazy "variant" civilisation reskins. No forward momentum with this game; just rehash after rehash after rehash!

Typical money-over-passion Devs who care most about releasing new power creep civs as dlc, while not balancing the rest of the game well at all. You get 10 with the anniversary edition, that's plenty for me, but they make them to suck so you buy the others. Very imbalanced civs locked behind the DLCs. Good luck playing against crazy 6 minute rushes that are so overpowered you may as well get used to quitting vs them after 6 minutes to avoid the leavers penalty. It's fun to start learning, but once you're advanced and understand the imbalances it's not fun anymore. Even pro tournament games end in steamrolls.

The anticheat should not impact single player offline play.

Active pause is not available. If i knew it before i would not buy the game. I am not playing the game. Garbage.

Excessive macro mechanics have ruined this game. Even different sub-factions within the same civilization possess entirely distinct technologies, units, and opening strategies. For players, it means an overwhelming learning curve, while for the development team, it means an almost impossible task of achieving mechanical balance. The sub-faction models in Company of Heroes 1 and Command & Conquer: Generals Zero Hour serve as benchmarks, perfectly demonstrating how to deliver rich variety through faction specialties under 3-5 sets of macro mechanics. However, Relic has clearly deviated from this approach. Game design is not just about complex mechanisms; knowing how to simplify and refine is what truly distinguishes exceptional designers.