Age of Wonders 4

Age of Wonders 4 is a turn-based 4X strategy game from the Dutch studio Triumph Studios, sending the player into a fantasy world full of distinct races, magic, and branching ruling factions. The core of the game is building your own race using so-called forms and cultures – the player can, for instance, combine dwarves with necromancy or elves with an industrial culture, creating entirely original civilizations with their own units, appearance, and abilities. Besides managing cities and the economy, the game also offers turn-based tactical battles on separate maps, where terrain, spells, unit positioning, and the proper use of heroes all matter, with heroes developing over the course of the game and gaining new abilities much like in role-playing games.

On Xbox Series X|S the game launched simultaneously with the PlayStation console version, with controls adapted for the gamepad – the menus and research tree are neatly divided into tabs that can be navigated with the triggers, which partially compensates for the speed of a mouse on PC when scrolling through dozens of research and upgrade options. Graphically, the game leans more toward readability of the map and units than photorealism, which works well on a console viewed on a TV from a greater distance, where clarity matters more than texture detail.

Critically, the game was received very positively, especially for the depth of its custom-race creation system and for reviving the older Age of Wonders brand for a new generation of players who may never have encountered the original entries. The story mode was also praised, guiding the player through a series of connected scenarios and gradually revealing the rules and possibilities of the system, which eases entry into an otherwise fairly complex game. For fans of turn-based strategy, it's one of the most interesting additions of recent years, and thanks to its clear controls it also ranks among the better things the 4X genre has to offer outside of PC on console, though managing a large empire in more depth will suit a player with the patience and appetite for working through several layers of menus.

Why play it: For fans of turn-based strategy who'll appreciate a story mode with a series of connected scenarios that eases entry into an otherwise complex system for creating custom races.