Age of Empires 4 achieved something remarkable at today's Xbox Gamescom showcase: It made Microsoft dedicate like ten minutes of its big show to an informative digression on trebuchets. This game knows its audience.
The video is made by Lion TV, a British TV production company that's made stuff for partners including the BBC, and who have travelled the globe gathering footage of experts talking about elements of the game. There will be a tonne of these videos in Age of Empires 4, covering subjects such as medieval surgery (sounds fun!), warfare and castle building, and odd topics like how archers kept flaming arrows from going out. It goes properly into medieval life, too, not just war, covering things like falconry, horse taming, and period instruments.
Back to the ultimate medieval siege weapon: As you'll learn above, trebuchets were used to "throw bee hives, even dead bodies... anything to cause maximum distress to the enemy."
- Age of Empires 2 team continues to cook while delivering 'legendarily long' 8,000-word patch notes about 'the biggest updates' the 26-year-old game has ever had
- Civilization 7 senior historian prays it'll be a 'gateway drug' into textbooks: 'I teach undergraduates in my other life, and my God, man, they don't read'
You'll hopefully be able to do that yourself when Age of Empires 4 launches on October 28 on PC (it'll be free on Game Pass too). Something additional about AoE4 has been teased for Gamescom Live, and we'll be on it. Meantime, here's everything we know about Age of Empires 4.
