Age of Empires fans are having their say on Age of Empires 4’s ships and water • Eurogamer.net

Microsoft has shown off Age of Empires 4 naval warfare in a brief new video, and it’s certainly got the series’ fans talking.

The video, below, offers a glimpse at the game’s the naval units without showing actual gameplay.

In truth, the video doesn’t tell us much at all about naval warfare in Age of Empires 4, but we do get a look at the ships and the water.

Age of Empires fans are having their say about they graphics (this time the water is getting a lot of attention!) – as they have done ever since Age of Empires 4 was properly revealed earlier this year. As a reminder, here’s the longer gameplay video released in April:

I think it’s fair to say Age of Empires 4, which is developed by Company of Heroes and Dawn of War creator Relic Entertainment for Microsoft, has a look that hasn’t exactly blown the community away. To my eyes, it looks like Microsoft is going for an accessible, easily scalable graphics style, one that is vibrant and offers clarity, but perhaps lacks the detail some fans were hoping for.

Fans are already comparing the naval graphics in Age of Empires 4 to those in the remasters of the previous games in the much-loved strategy series, suggesting the older games look better. The video below, from YouTube channel SergiuHellDragoonHQ, shows off naval gameplay in Age of Empires 3 Definitive Edition:

Some have called Age of Empires 4 cartoony. I’m not sure I’d go that far, but Age of Empires 4 does look like an RTS designed to work across a range of PC types, which probably makes a lot of sense from Microsoft’s perspective.

It’s not long before we’ll find out how it plays. Age of Empires 4 launches on PC (and of course on Game Pass) on 28th October.