I've written before about my love for Age of Empires 2 and how it shaped my taste in games, but Age of Empires 4 never clicked quite as strongly.
I appreciated the improved graphics and new features, but ultimately, that paled in comparison to the utterly gargantuan amount of stuff that Age of Empires 2: Definitive Edition still has to offer. It's a game that's still growing, with more factions and campaigns based on The Three Kingdoms arriving in May.
That's changed with Age of Empires 4's latest DLC, Knights of Cross and Rose. While I was initially skeptical, the faction mechanics introduced here are the most compelling addition Age of Empires 4 has seen yet, and I hope future DLC follows suit.
Age of Empires 4 gets two new factions
As you might surmise from the title, Knights of Cross and Rose adds two new factions to Age of Empires 4 in the form of the Knights Templar and the House of Lancaster.
While both are technically categorized as Variant Civilizations — meaning they are a customized version of an existing faction — that description seriously undersells how different they are and how fun they are to play, especially the Knights Templar.
The Knights Templar choose to ally with other Knightly orders and factions as they advance through the Ages, which means potentially adding Knights Hospitaller or Genoese crossbows into your ranks.
The most compelling element, however, is the Pilgrimage mechanic. The Knights Templar can generate gold by safely escorting pilgrims to holy sites on a map, building a Fortress nearby with armaments that help keep said pilgrims from being ambushed.
It's fitting, as the Knights Templar order was originally founded to protect pilgrims heading to Jerusalem. It's an innovative mechanic that actually changes the fundamental basic way I play, something I can't often say for a new faction in a real-time strategy game.
I'd really like to see more of this. Yes, new units and lords are fun to play around with, but taking something engendered by an element of history and directly adapting it into a gameplay mechanic is fascinating.
This sets the Knights Templar aside in a way that other factions haven't really stood out, even if they were fun to use. Bluntly, they even overshadow the House of Lancaster, though this latter group is still fun to play with if you're tired of the regular English.
All of that praise doesn't mean I think there's no room for criticism. This DLC includes a handful of standalone scenarios called Historical Battles, letting players take part in fights like the Battle of Agincourt. This is all well and good, but it's not the same as getting a full new campaign.
While the prior expansion, The Sultans Ascend, included a new campaign to progress through, there's no such addition here.
That's a miss, and if you're someone who primarily enjoys Age of Empires from a single-player perspective, I could understand if that would make you want to wait and pick this DLC up at a discount later down the line.
Still, I really hope the developers at World's Edge and its myriad partner teams don't give up on the thread that's started here. I'm playing Age of Empires 4 more now than I have since launch, and I'd like to see more new civilizations in the future feel similarly distinct to use and play.
Age of Empires 4 is currently available on Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and Windows PC (via Steam and the Xbox App). Like all Xbox first-party games, it's included in Xbox Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass.
