Nick Fernandes / Android Authority
One of the first games I played on PC was Age of Empires, so the new Age of Empires mobile game definitely piqued my interest. Sure, it’ll be an even worse and more mobile version of the classic series, but it should be good for some nostalgia on the go, right?
Well, after playing for about 5 hours, I’m here to tell you that this is the worst mobile cash-in I’ve ever played.
And I always give matches a fair chance. I also liked Command and Conquer: Rivals, despite its flaws. But the more I played Age of Empires Mobile, the worse things got.
History smish story, let’s make it sexy
Nick Fernandes / Android Authority
The game has the same general aesthetic as Age of Empires, but pretty much everything else is thrown out with hot water. The settings are contrived, the historical figures are reduced to gacha tropes (King Arthur is my favorite), and the gameplay is a hodgepodge of every genre except real-time strategy.
Let’s take a look from above. The main character is Josephine, a bland K-pop wannabe character. The only notable thing is that his father was an emperor. When he is killed and the capital sacked, she sets out to find the fabled MacGuffin sword and rebuild her empire from her border outpost.
The first few minutes of gameplay are most similar to Age of Empires, where all you have to do is drag icons over villains and watch Josephine murder them. But after that first sequence, we never saw that style of gameplay again.
Nick Fernandes / Android Authority
Instead, you’re immediately thrown into general city building, assigning villagers to camps and collecting resources (just like in the real game!). I was really struck by how similar it looked to the dangerous city builder from a decade ago, when sexy anime artwork was the main attraction. For that matter, developers have managed to make all sorts of historical characters inexplicably muscular through AI-generated methods, but they’re not quite the same.
If you told me this game was from 2014, I would believe you.
After almost a full day of cursed testing, I was in the castle era, level 8 in the center of town. Yes, level up your town center, just like in Clash of Clans. There is also a fishing mini-game. There’s no one who doesn’t love fishing.
It’s worth mentioning that virtually no game mechanics are explained at all. I still don’t know what most of the buttons on the HUD do. Most of my progress was made by tapping on goals and following the instructions. There are red dot notifications everywhere and no matter how hard you try, they won’t go away for a long time.
All games except Age of Empires
But things got even worse. The next bit of actual gameplay involved sailing to a random island to take part in a rip-off of auto-fighters like Auto Chess and Teamfight Tactics. Unlike those games, there are no turns or complications, so you just watched Joan of Arc cry to Julius Caesar until you won. For the Empire!
After a while, you can now access the world map. There you can see the border outposts of everyone else who became Empire wannabes, as well as random tribes to conquer for resources. However, most of the time it’s just huge, empty, and confusing.
I’m feeling pretty good at this point, but things can get worse, so be careful. A few hours later, I unlocked the new Battlefield Survivor mode. It doesn’t really feel like Age of Empires, but I thought it was better than auto chess or wasteland exploration, so I gave it a try.
Nick Fernandes / Android Authority
Well, it turned out to be almost a one-to-one copy of Vampire Survivors. Look at the photo above. That’s strange. The color of the experience orb also did not change.
We haven’t even touched on very aggressive monetization yet. More builders, faster build times, gacha draws, resources, and just about everything else can be purchased within the app. I also counted three separate Battle Pass mechanics. One of them costs $25.
I don’t know who the target audience for this game is.
I have no idea who this game was made for. It feels like some low-budget Chinese developer bundled together some random off-the-shelf games and slapped the AoE brand on it. The fact that this was released is a real mystery to me.
What’s even crazier is that there was a decent Age of Empires mobile game in the past. Age of Empires: Castle Siege on Windows Phone was a tower defense game, but at least it tried to do something interesting. The original game was fully ported to Pocket PC over 20 years ago. Xbox Game Studios, what are we doing here?
Don’t waste your time on this. There are many better games out there. I’d be surprised if it’s still there after a year.
