I was extremely worried about AOE4 because I had seen no gameplay of it despite the hype and advertisements going on for months surrounding the game. Literally after my first match of the Stress Test I decided to pre-order the game because it was immediately recognizable as a product improved Age of Empires 2. I had originally played Age of Empires 2 when I was about 5 years old and I still played it every so often so jumping onto AOE4 for the first time was like reliving the excitement of trying out a new game that turned out to be really good as a child. Not an experience most people get to try.
It reminded me of how all the negative media was going on about the F-35 for decades until they started using the plane in combat over the middle east back in 2018 and bombing terrorists in defended airspace who didn’t realize what had attacked them until the US took credit for the strikes in a press release the next day. My opinion based around incomplete information was just immediately turned around.
Overall I think that what Relic and Microsoft did with this stress test was the right call. I think earlier versions of the game with more bugs would have made the experience less enjoyable and perhaps it wouldn’t have swayed me into picking up the game.
