Age of Wonders 4 announcement has 4X game fans eating well

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The long-awaited fourth entry in the series hits PC and console this May

Age of Wonders 4
(Image credit: Paradox Interactive)

Age of Wonders 4, the next entry in the long-running fantasy 4X game series, has been announced for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X and S, and it's due out on May 2, 2023.

Like previous entries in the Age of Wonders series, AoW4 will have you building a fantasy kingdom through a Civilization-style 4X campaign. This time, your civilization will evolve as you go, evolving through new physical forms based on your decisions, and empires that you've built in the past can ascend to appear in future games. Battles play out as turn-based tactical affairs where units are pitted against each other in environments that reflect what's actually going on in the overworld.

This is the first numbered entry in the Age of Wonders series in nearly a decade. Age of Wonders: Planetfall took the series to sci-fi frontiers in 2019, but fans have been eagerly awaiting a return to the traditional fantasy setting.

Despite dallying in some lengthy Civilization sessions over the years, Age of Wonders has passed me by, and the more I see of Age of Wonders 4, the more I'm upset about that fact. Watching a fantasy race evolve into angels, demons, or something far weirder over the course of a big sandbox campaign sounds very appealing, to the degree that AoW4 is quickly jumping up my own 2023 wishlist. Here's hoping it measures up to the other greats among the best 4X games.

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Dustin Bailey
Dustin Bailey
Staff Writer

Dustin Bailey joined the GamesRadar team as a Staff Writer in May 2022, and is currently based in Missouri. He's been covering games (with occasional dalliances in the worlds of anime and pro wrestling) since 2015, first as a freelancer, then as a news writer at PCGamesN for nearly five years. His love for games was sparked somewhere between Metal Gear Solid 2 and Knights of the Old Republic, and these days you can usually find him splitting his entertainment time between retro gaming, the latest big action-adventure title, or a long haul in American Truck Simulator.