I would have thought it that way had it not been the revisit to medieval. I’m sorry but that makes AOE IV a direct competitor to its predecessor.
Had it say challenged a different theme, I don’t think it would have mattered much. Then basically you could have all the games free standing and depending on which age range they wanted to play, they’d pick up the game. But now you have two medieval games in the same series competing against each other. I for one am not loyal to any game lol. I’m only loyal to the franchise. Give me a better game in the franchise and I’m all yours. Never looking back at the predecessor. And I really thought AOE IV was it. Now you have two medieval AOE franchise with 1 game that has all the modern tech but leas features than one with all the old tech but more graphical fidelity. In its DE of course. Which is such a wasted opportunity.
That said, being loyal to the franchise if still play AOE IV, hoping they improve down the track. But to me AOE IV will be like AOE I, once AoM gets remastered. Just an acknowledgement that it’s in the series, but nothing spectacular.
Fair points. I suppose it’s difficult to discuss the business model (cultivating this so-called garden of Age games) without getting into the weeds of analyzing the games in the garden.
These are all pretty much rehashes of themselves, but mainly with better graphics in each iteration; sometimes questionably better. Gameplay, overall look/vibe, and AI remains pretty constant for most of them for decades. I’m sure there are more
That’s called forwarding the game. You don’t need an annoying revamp of a whole game to move it forward. They kept all the things people loved and improved on it. Especially Civ and Sims. lol
Unlike Relic taking it away. Hence why those games are successful.
These are not games that piggy backed off their old games. They added more and more to each game while keeping all the fun stuff.