And yet within little more than five years the genre was essentially dead. Age Of Empires 4 – it feels old-fashioned in more ways than one (pic: Microsoft)Īfter 16 years the Age Of Empires franchise finally gets a new sequel but is the latest entry too similar to the old ones – or not enough?įollowing the release of Command & Conquer in 1995 real-time strategy games became the most popular game type on the PC, with every Western publisher in the world rushing to make one.