There's a unique feeling of satisfaction that Age of Empires games have excelled at delivering over the years. That wonderfully fulfilling moment of seeing your strategy succeed at littering the battlefield with an entire army of deceased knights and peasants, all your hard work, micro-management, and scheming paying off as your forces march off to burn down the nearest town center. Age of Empires II mastered that triumphant moment of careful planning and unleashing a well-balanced army on your opponent, and it's that timeless feeling that Age of Empires IV seeks to capture while paying homage to its past.

While it does succeed at evoking nostalgic memories of unloading a heavily-armored Persian pachyderm war machine deep in the heart of enemy territory, Age of Empires IV doesn't make much of an effort to venture out of its comfort zone either. It's confident but familiar, relying on what works without blazing a new trail in the strategy genre.

Relic Entertainment and World's Edge's sequel to the long-running real-time strategy series thankfully skips some of the unnecessary complexity of Age of Empires III. Instead, they bring the game back to a successfully proven formula of managing limited resources, tactical scouting, and slowly transforming your hamlet from scrappy upstart into a world-conquering feudal superpower across several ages.