Pros:
Incredibly well tbought-out missions. I was actually impressed how each mission had a unique feel compared to other traditional AOE campaign missions.
I really enjoyed the MOBA style mission that forces you to exploit the hel out of the rock-paper-scissors mechanic, so much so that I wish it was among the first missions for the original campaigns for new players to learn.
The creativity of the campaign missions alone is well worth the money and time, IMO.
Cons:
Not much of a history lesson, which is an expectation set by the original campaigns. Not only that, the campaign tells a mindless one-sided story… especially considering how much of the campaign involves a rather nuanced topic: the crusades.
The original campaigns used factual events and was explained to the players documentary style by seemingly unbiased experts. This time around, most of it is from a perspective of a biased story teller. That was a let-down and just straight up cringe at times, especially because… well…
Let’s say that there’s a certain IRL landmark that certain te[redacted]st organization is using to justify certain acts, and that landmark is mentioned as a motive for attacking a certain city. My point is, one-sided story can drag you down.
I mean, what’s the deal here? What’s the market incentive? A puny percentage of players are from Arab/Islam majority nations, never mind the exchange rate of those countries don’t allow easy access to PCs (and xbox) that can run the game. I don’t know what the calculation was in making a campaign narrative that would only be attractive to Arab players.
I implore the devs to steer clear out of that lane in the future.
The future:
As mentioned, the campaign is not documentary style. Rather, it’s basically a story told by a voice actor over some barely animated images. In other words, it should have been relatively cheap to make.
I would buy campaign DLCs of similar caliber for $7 to $10. This might be a way for AoE4 team to make a bit more money. Not to mention, there’s a lot of civs that lack their own campaign.