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Age of Empires 4 civilisations – a quick guide

Everything you need to know about Age of Empires 4's launch civilisations

Age of Empires IV is out now, and we know all eight launch civilisations. Initially we were only told about four during the official gameplay reveal back in April, but as part of E3 2021 we learned about the final four.

Age of Empires IV’s launch civilisations are meant to represent a wide breadth of cultures and polities that existed during the game’s timeframe – which is from around the 11th century through to the start of the Renaissance. There is a European flavour to the launch roster, as three out of four of the launch civs are firmly within the borders of Europe. A fourth – the Rus – are an emergent culture from the inter-mingling of Scandinavian adventurers and the local Slavic population living in western Russia.

The remaining four Age of Empires 4 civs come from other parts of the world – North Africa and the Mediterranean, central/south Asia, and then the steppes and the far east. Plenty of areas don’t have any representation though, such as North/South America, central and southern Africa, and parts of south east Asia and the Pacific.

Microsoft – in response to concerns over the Delhi Sultanate specifically – has already suggested that they’re willing to explore existing areas with more cultures, so I imagine the company will want to look at areas not covered at launch as well.

Age of Empires 4 civilizations

These are the confirmed launch civilisations for Age of Empires 4:

There are also going to be four narrative campaigns in the game at launch. We know the English will be getting one framed around William the Conqueror and his descendants conquest of England. The French will get a campaign themed around the 100 years war, and allegedly the Mongols and the Rus will be getting campaigns as well. The former, we imagine, will be based on the exploits of Genghis Khan and his family.

Each civilisation will have a very different design and play style. The English, for example, will play more like a traditional Age of Empires civilisation, where-as the Mongols will have more unique mechanics that make them play very differently.

Related: The best RTS games on PC

We’ll update this guide with more information on each individual civilisation as we get closer to launch.