When I first booted up Age of Empires Mobile, it seemed like a faithful, if simplified, mobile adaption for the popular real-time strategy game series. I used my phone’s touchscreen to move units around, engage in combat, or take down structures. I was starting to see how this game could hook me if it were always like this, as I’ve dumped my fair share of time into games like Age of Empires II. Unfortunately, after that opening, Age of Empires Mobile exposes its true form.
Much of my early time in Age of Empires Mobile was spent in gacha menus, idle city building, and auto battles — none of which screamed Age of Empires to me. Nuggets of what’s so enjoyable about Age of Empires can be found in its mobile counterpart, but in practice, it feels like a mobile game adapted to the Age of Empires IP rather than a faithful and considerate Age of Empires adaptation for mobile.
A historical gacha
The core gameplay loop of Age of Empires Mobile is all about obtaining resources so you can continue to build up your citadel and upgrade the historical heroes and troops. For this early build, I was given tons of resources and never had to worry about timers or having insufficient resources to build what I needed. I suspect there will be time and money gates for free-to-play players, though. Obtaining historical figures through gacha pulls works for Age of Empires Mobile, as it gives the game a chance to cover a wide breadth of history without overloading the experience with many factions or campaigns from day one.
While games like Marvel Strike Force have shown me how this system can get predatory, I at least understand its inclusion here. These historical figures serve as the leaders of troops I commanded, but unfortunately, Age of Empires Mobile lacks the depth of its PC counterparts or even fellow real-time strategy games on mobile, such as Warcraft Rumble. There’s a world map where players can walk around and engage players, but these battles are as simple as clicking a button to attack and watching the battle play out in real time. If you’re at a higher level than whoever you’re fighting, you’ll always win.
Age of Empires Mobile does feature Sieges and multiplayer battles that seem to act closer to the PC strategy games, but I did not encounter any of these in the early hours of the game outside of that opening. Even if that kind of content exists somewhere down the line, it feels a little misleading for Age of Empires Mobile not to get right into it. Choosing to focus on idle city building and an autobattler mode early on rather than the kind of RTS gameplay the series is known for is a baffling decision.
Building up my citadel was where most of my playtime was spent. It’s a sensible area for this mobile game to focus on, as maintaining a well-built and defended base is part of the PC Age of Empires games. Unfortunately, there’s little in the way of actual customization, so this part of the game felt like a huge time and resource sink to me rather than engaging. It also didn’t help that I was frequently directed to Age of Empires Mobile’s Island Tactics mode.
This mode is a direct clone of Auto Chess, as I placed my historical heroes in tiles and hoped they outlasted the competing forces. Autobattlers can be fun, but that’s not the type of strategy gameplay I come to Age of Empires for. It lacks much in the way of strategic interaction, which seems to be a recurring problem with Age of Empires Mobile. Outside of that opening and the occasional exciting historical hero pull, it does not feel like an Age of Empires game, but rather a reskin of other popular mobile games.
I’m not one to immediately dismiss mobile games. Marvel Snap has been my most-played game ever since it entered beta in May 2022, and I’ll occasionally check out games like Threes, Marvel Strike Force, or Warcraft Rumble when I need to kill some time on my phone. As a fan of Age of Empires, I was ready to be hooked by its mobile adaptation. Instead, I was left underwhelmed and confused about why I was seeing so many clichés rather than a sharp mobile strategy adaptation that gets why the PC Age of Empires games are as beloved as they are. Age of Empires Mobile may find an audience, but I doubt it will be with hardcore Age of Empires fans who’ve enjoyed the series for decades.
Age of Empires Mobile launches for iOS and Android on October 17.
