The Age Of Empires 4 devs on bees, cheats, and "the John Wick of medieval cities"

With the October 28th release of Age Of Empires IV looming, concluding week'southward Gamescom upshot saw a clutch of new reveals for the medieval strategy caricature, including a new trailer, a couple of alive interviews, and - my personal favourite - an unexpected short documentary well-nigh trebuchets. In merely three minutes, it told us a surprisingly large amount about history's finest rock-chuckers, including the fact that they were sometimes armed with such strange ammunition as diseased livestock, expressionless bodies, and bee hives.

Naturally, then, when I spoke with AoE franchise creative director Adam Isgreen and game director Quinn Duffy post-obit the show, there was one question I needed to ask more than than any other. Indeed, so urgent was I to know, that I entirely forgot to say hello or introduce myself, instead opening the interview past blurting, "so, we'll be able to shoot bees, then?"

I certainly know how to brand an entrance.

"I'll exist quite upset if at that place aren't bees," I add, simply in case this was mistaken for a cheery nod to the trebuchet picture show, rather than a brutally serious question. Duffy grimaces amiably. "About that," he replies. "Maybe we should accept pulled some punches on the dialogue in that location, as information technology also talked near firing dead bodies, and I'm non certain that'll piece of work for a teen-rated game."

So, no bees, then?

"In the hereafter," Duffy offers, in an endeavour to placate me, "we'll, ah, we could add a cosmetic mod which makes the trebuchet firing blitheness show a nest of bees being fired…" It'south a spirited offer from the Relic Amusement managing director, but it'due south not enough. I don't want animations of bees; I want bees. I desire to put my enemies through Sting'due south greatest hits, on the hr every hr, from a range of 3 hundred metres.

"I want bees," I need.

I discover this diagram of a trebuchet'due south key parts, from the AoE4 documentary, to be extremely satisfying.

"I mean, those trebuchets launched some nasty stuff," interjects Isgreen, coming to his colleague's rescue. "They threw rotten, diseased pig, corpses, the heads of enemies… there was some really atrocious stuff that could get thrown over the walls…" He pauses then, looking quizzical, and circles effectually to a new thought. "I mean, beehives wouldn't necessarily pause our T for teen rating. So, um, we'll meet most that 1."

Unwilling to take the fleck any farther, in case these two men think I am genuinely attempting to bully them into last-minute feature creep, I decide to drop the bee demands, only it turns out information technology's got Isgreen going.

"It is funny though," he says. "Some of those hands-on history videos nosotros've washed - I gotta be honest - nosotros put together the scripts, then we're like, 'Wait, why can't we do this in the game? Nosotros should put this in.'" He brings up the example of pavises: portable wicker barriers which were used to shield advancing crossbowmen from defensive burn, and which were included in AoE4 after coming upwardly during product of the game's embedded documentary material.

Pavises remind me of the Hussite wagons recently introduced to AoE4's older brother AoE2, in its Dawn Of The Dukes expansion. The wagons human action a fleck like pavises, soaking upwardly incoming arrow fire so weaker units tin can advance behind them, and I wonder if they were perhaps an consequence of the pavise-mania which presumably swept through the Age franchise teams before in the summertime.

The trailer offered a glimpse of Russia's warrior monks: monks who do war, and who appear to make a deeper, more than threatening version of the archetype "wololo" sound.

"Not in that case, I don't think," replies Isgreen, "only ideas practise travel. The Forgotten Empires guys are coming up with these new civs and units for AoE2, and then they're as well helping the states with the balancing on AoE4, so they tin can do a lot to upwards our game." As well, he explains, the more than experimental, innovative unit designs in the terminal couple of AoE2 expansions - similar the Hussite railroad vehicle - are partially a result of AoE4's design mentality rubbing off on designers from Forgotten Empires. "I remember that that's partially our mentality rubbing off and giving the bulletin that it'due south OK to get a footling crazier now."

If Dawn Of The Dukes was an indicator of the consistent level of craziness to await from AoE4, then I'm all for information technology, 'cos it was brilliant. Needless to say, talking nearly DOTD got me thinking nearly AoE2's venerable scenario editor, which I wrote about final week, and wondering if AoE4 will offer players an equivalent.

"Nosotros've got our own world-edifice suite that attaches to Essence [AoE4'south game engine]," Duffy explains. "Obviously that tool has undergone huge revisions over the years, and now has a lot of stuff specifically for Historic period Of Empires. So, our objective is indeed to launch that tool to players, probably just postal service-launch, and it'southward going through its own beta test right now."

Now that things have warmed upwardly again after the initial grilling over insects, I decide to stick with the discipline of scenarios, and ask Isgreen and Duffy their favourite moments from AoE4's campaigns. Isgreen answers immediately. "There'southward a mission in the Hundred Years' War entrada that is… completely unique. When I read the mission layouts and found out what nosotros were doing with it, I genuinely had to check it was based on a real event. Information technology feels like something that happened in a video game."

"Moscow is kind of like the John Wick of medieval cities. It merely kept getting shell up, and kept coming dorsum."

I endeavor to bamboozle Isgreen into revealing what historical upshot he is talking virtually, and while he is tight-lipped on the whole, he does cease up expressing his disbelief that "they just completely stopped fighting to do this." Was this a medieval version of the infamous World War I Christmas football match? Who knows! Answers on a comments section postcard, please.

"For me, information technology'due south the Ascension Of Moscow campaign," Duffy decides. Every bit we've already learned, AoE4'south campaigns will follow broader sweeps of history than AoE2 and AoE3's biographical tales of famous individuals. Just in Duffy's view, the Russian campaign almost returns to the old format, since the city of Moscow is such a compelling graphic symbol in itself.

"It's kind of like, I dunno, the John Wick of medieval cities," he says, in the single best quote I've been given this yr. "Information technology just kept getting vanquish upwardly and kept coming back and, you lot know, giving as good as it got. It had the European powers against information technology in the West, and the Mongols and the Golden Horde in the East, and… it'southward definitely got that John Wick vibe to it."

Much like the John Wick films, the Ascension Of Moscow campaign shows the current Russian capital's evolution from an isolated river fort into a superpower - presumably catalysed by the murder of its dog. I'thou well up for information technology.

"This is the ideal isolated river fort. Yous may not similar it, only this is what pinnacle performance looks like."

We hash out multiplayer briefly, including the fact that AoE4 volition - equally expected - accept divers seasons for ranked play. They won't exist available at launch sadly, but they'll be following at a afterwards appointment. "We're going to try to fourth dimension major balance updates with new seasons starting," says Isgreen, "since we want to encourage people to kind of have a reset and get prepare for a new meta, when the seasons switch."

As we stray onto the topic of the much-demanded global queue characteristic for ranked multiplayer, Isgreen takes a moment to (mildly) lament the loftier level of expectation on AoE4's launch feature set driven past the runaway success of AoE2's definitive edition. "It'due south something that we absolutely want to add - but information technology's worth remembering information technology wasn't in AoE2 at launch, and information technology wasn't even in Definitive Edition until later. So we're... we're trying." Given this level of expectation, AoE4'south developers have made the smart decision to launch with a roadmap of what'southward existence added to the game, across the campaigns, the multiplayer modes, and the scenario editor.

"Oh!" Isgreen adds, as we're wrapping up. "Cheats! Cheats are coming mail-launch as well, since that's kind of a classic Age thing. And we oasis't talked nigh that before, so at that place you go." Cheats - often involving ridiculous, overpowered units - take indeed a love feature of the Historic period Of Empires series, and it's pleasing to hear AoE4'south designers already accept a shortlist of candidate units based on running gags from concept art. "Maybe the beehives can make information technology in, then?" I suggest, a bit plaintively. "Instead of the Cobra Car?"

"Maybe they're driving the Cobra Machine," suggests Duffy, thereby ending the conversation with a statement every bit powerful as the one it began on. Get in the auto, losers: we've got a shitload of stripy lads, and nosotros're going to avenge Moscow's dog.