Age of Empires 4 developer interview: Celebrating history and creating the true successor to Age of Empires 2
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Your Next History InstructorAge of Empires iv developer interview: Celebrating history and creating the true successor to Age of Empires ii
I sat down with three Age of Empires 4 developers following an advance sneak-peek at the upcoming game to talk nearly the legendary serial and where it's headed next. 
Source: Microsoft
Real-time strategy fans were treated to a spectacular demonstration of upcoming content on April 10 at the Age of Empires Fan Preview event. New Age of Empires 2 and three Definitive Edition content was revealed, as was a whole bunch of Age of Empires 4 data.
The standout news? Age of Empires 4 is expected to launch afterward this year. And while information technology certainly has a bevy of new tricks to show off, it'south still almost certainly an Historic period of Empires game both in mode and play.
A few days after an advance preview I was able to sit downwardly with World's Border Senior Executive Producer Michael Isle of mann, Relic Entertainment Game Director Quinn Duffy, and Relic Entertainment Fine art Director Zach Schläppi for a more than direct conversation about what nosotros tin can expect from Age of Empires 4.
A true successor to Age of Empires two
One of the overarching themes pulled from the preview effect and following Q&A session is that Age of Empires 4 isn't attempting to reinvent the RTS genre. More than specifically, the new game was referred to equally "a spiritual successor to Age 2" by Game Director Quinn Duffy. Resources, including woods, nutrient, gold, and stone look the aforementioned, and the ages begin with Dark and end with Purple. Going deeper, core gameplay should likewise seem familiar to those who have played Age 2.
Duffy: You mentioned resources, you mentioned ages, those are plainly cadre parts of the feel. Managing your villagers, tech tree, how to get through the tech tree to unlock upgrades and build units; all those things will be familiar to longtime franchise devotees.
There are also things around the cadre balance, the cadre rock, paper, pair of scissors of archers and ranged units, spearmen, pikemen, and horse units. Nosotros wanted to maintain that cadre. In every civilization there are those understandable and recognizable units. Players tin can appreciate how they work. They all accept little wrinkles here and there with, say, the ability to charge and do actress damage. Spearmen and pikemen can kind of caryatid against cavalry so information technology gives them some fiddling microplay opportunities there and the ability to maneuver your units and utilize a bit of skill for some of our more hardcore players and fans. A little fleck more micro — we wanted to maintain some of that.
Source: Microsoft
Core and surface gameplay mechanics aren't the only thing that will exist familiar to serial veterans. Art direction has also been heavily influenced by the older games. Even though Age 4 is using a brand new version of Relic'due south engine, players are going to immediately recognize that this is an Age of Empires game. And that feat falls on Art Director Zach Schläppi. He emphasized that the art team consists of many Age fans, so pulling traditional colors and landscapes made sense for the new game.
Schläppi: We did direct color pulls from Age of Empires ii and used that as sort of the accent color ballast. And so only deepened the colour values [...] and adjusted it so that the low-fidelity detail was the most important thing to read. Such equally the units, weapons, things similar that. Nosotros put a lot more than time into the procedural environments, which really even though are algorithmically generated, a lot of their profiles are from Age of Empires 2 maps [...].
Schläppi also talked about architectural decisions and how they play into the cadre gameplay mechanics. Information technology wasn't just a thing of creating bonny buildings; each structure had to contribute to the overall accessibility of the game.
Schläppi: An important thing for u.s. was making sure that — for buildings — nosotros keep sort of the ghost of the buildings that people will recognize because buildings are sort of similar elaborate buttons. [...] We whip the camera from a battlefield dorsum to a hamlet, you want to be able to quickly recognize your structures. We try to make that as clear as possible by having unique identification for the rooftops, the banners, logo of the buildings is the same as the logo on the UI HUD. All the units are very identifiable. Nosotros exaggerated the weapons, the helmets. The read is stylized for maximum readability from far camera and near camera for the players.
You lot're going to see a lot of echoing of the aforementioned templates that you're familiar with from Age of Empires ii, merely that things have been deepened in terms of the visual fidelity, 4K graphics, physical-based rendering. We've improved the lighting engine, we've improved the water shaders, and the majority of the textures are procedurally generated but still accept all the care yous'd expect from this production.
The takeaway here is that Age of Empires ii and its flanking entries have heavily influenced Age of Empires four. Veteran players are going to be able to sit down and immediately pick up the core values. Merely what sets Historic period 4 apart?
Going places Age of Empires has never gone earlier
Source: Microsoft
Age of Empires 4 might look and experience familiar, just it'southward not without a ton of new gameplay mechanics and systems. Most intriguing to me, a lifelong Historic period 2 player, are new siege, wall, landmark, age-upwards, burn, deadfall, and conversion mechanics.
Duffy: We wanted to put a little more emphasis on some of the defensive gameplay. For more coincidental players, it gives them an opportunity to kind of feel a fleck prophylactic for a niggling while. The advantage volition ultimately swing to the aggressor, equally was commonly the case historically. [...] Siege is also intended to exist peradventure a little more powerful, and a little less frequent. We don't want 15 trebuchets wandering around and snapshotting. They're intended to be heavy and powerful, and you probably need to defend them a niggling more. [...] And and then when something like a trebuchet or a cannon shows up on the battlefield, it should accept an impact.
While we've already seen in Historic period 2 how siege plays an important role in late-Regal battles, we've never seen units atop walls. And this new mechanic volition cistron in heavily when defending your city.
Duffy: That's kind of a fundamental function of the whole thing. We wanted units on walls. That was kind of the fantasy. You visit these castles and walk the ramparts. And it sort of seemed like a natural addition. If we can get units on walls, it spills into a whole range of new play and counterplay with siege weapons, with seizing walls, with getting your melee units upwards on walls, using enemy walls against them [...]. And so at that place's a lot of additional gameplay that'due south been added with but that feature alone.
Speaking on the new age-up mechanics, Michael Isle of mann explains how landmarks will now play an important role in how yous aim your civilization. Historic period 4 won't just crave a click upwardly; it will require a conclusion on your part, similar to Historic period 3.
Mann: Your landmark is either economic system [or] military, and based on your opponent — the civilisation, say, is the Mongols — you may want to go military because you're worried that they're going to come up raid you early.
Instead of matches devolving into what is fondly known as a "Trash War" with relatively weak armies that don't toll gilded facing off against each other, Historic period iv is looking to bring some new mechanics that will break upward late-game stalemates.
Duffy: Information technology gives different opportunities for different types of win conditions in the game and options to pause stalemates and accept the fight out into the map. So there'due south maybe some inspiration from that. Just, you know, we'll see what players think when they become their hands on it in the Beta, and we can figure out how we want to move frontward with a lot of those things.
Source: Microsoft
As someone who enjoys fatigued-out offline games against calculator opponents, I had to inquire how AI is existence handled. Can it however be cheesed? Probably. Is it expected to exist a big upgrade over an enemy that can't easily deal with early on assailment? About definitely.
Duffy: In that location were a lot of tactics that nosotros wanted the AI to be able to handle. Nosotros also wanted to ensure the AI could play all parts of the game. It needed to be able to build walls and defend itself. [...] With all of the unique abilities and options and upgrades that those civilizations have, it needs to empathize those sort of landmark choices. Then it'due south all new from the ground upwards. We have our own AI systems.
We did some things that were actually interesting in combat stuff also for residue. It actually does machine learning on combat encounters, to build up its understanding of whether it's outmatched, or whether it has a probability to win an see. And then it can retreat away from cases where information technology feels a little more than nervous.
Duffy also mentioned that these systems are bound to demand tweaking equally players meet them. The squad has plans to back up and update the AI long term. As for the multiplayer side, the squad is focused on edifice a stiff game first. Discussions about leaderboards and ladders are still ongoing, and Duffy believes a community rallying behind an esports push must happen organically.
Historic period of Empires four is heavy on history
Source: Microsoft
What would an Age of Empires game be without a stiff focus on history? I learned far more than from Age ii than I did in any ane history class, so I'm glad to see Historic period of Empires 4 is taking a like approach. From the core art management to the asymmetrical unit choices to the language spoken past those same units, the game is going heavy on history. Apart from the documentary-style campaign cutscenes that feature real-earth locations in the modern day, the squad explained how history is woven into the game.
Duffy: We do a lot of historical research. And function of that historical research also includes researching what the previous games have done and maybe what we wanted to do differently. So we apply this 'history as a tool' idea. It helps drive some of that authenticity into the pattern of the civs. And nosotros have elements from history and turn those into [...] gameplay. Nosotros wanted all those civs to experience very unlike. Yous saw on the video that the Mongols are completely nomadic; pick upwardly and move everything. That was their matter. They were a nomadic Empire. They eventually settled down and built cities and stuff, simply at the peak of their power information technology was their speed and mobility that gave them and so much effectiveness.
Whereas the English, they can put up walls and castles and defend with longbows. But they also accept maybe a unique opening [...]. They can get human-at-artillery right away, they can be aggressive if they want. They tin can besides be actually defensive and that gives those players some actually unique early Dark Age and early Feudal options for gameplay that nosotros recall the fans will really enjoy.
Mann: So in that location are those abilities, and then with the Chinese there's a shot of a tax collector because that's part of that culture [...]. You come across the tax collector come up to the town center to drib off gold. And then yous take the scholars who volition help y'all progress with your applied science aspects. So each of the civilizations have their unique powers and weaknesses, which is so absurd.
Schläppi: We went a lot deeper in terms of the building identity. Buildings are characters in our game. From [Dark Age], you're starting with wattle and daub and thatch; very primitive architecture. By [Imperial Historic period], it's a completely different feeling. Information technology's more unique. It'southward going from homogenous Western European civilizations — which are mostly based on the Danes and the northern countries — that now commencement evolving into their own unique vernacular. [...] I love the feel. It embodies the spirit of that civ. Watching the technological development of the architecture is just a beautiful thing to come across. Again, the game is for the spectator as much as it is for the thespian.
Age of Empires four is expected later this yr
Source: Microsoft
It'southward articulate that Age of Empires 4 is being designed within the scope of appealing to longtime fans of the series. But it's also not going to exclude players who are new, even to the genre equally a whole. The four-office campaign spanning medieval generations volition provide greenhorns with the tools needed to learn Historic period mechanics, but there will be multiple difficulty levels to challenge veterans. And the team likewise hopes to have a fine-tuned matchmaking system in place at launch to ensure all skill levels are matched accordingly.
Age of Empires 4 now has an expected Fall 2022 release window, and the team is confident near hitting the marker. Be certain to check out our Historic period of Empires 4: Everything you need to know article for a whole lot more information well-nigh the upcoming game.
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