PCGamer: Best Strategy 2021: Old World

[The_J]

PCGamer has elected Old World as their best strategy game of 2021. Which is quite a feat, since this meant it also beat e.g. Age Of Empires 4!
The article can be found here: https://www.pcgamer.com/best-strategy-game-2021-old-world/
An excerpt:

It's so much more than Civ with Crusader Kings' humanity, though. Mohawk Games and designer Soren Johnson have also reconsidered a big list of 4X systems, as well as finding ways to make the genre more manageable without sacrificing complexity—sometimes they add even more interesting opportunities. The Orders system is fantastic for this very reason. It ostensibly limits how much you can do in a single turn, teaching you to prioritise, but that limitation can be neutralised by making certain decisions that will shape your civilisation and ruler. Simpler but just as welcome, you can undo any action you take, or an entire turn. It's great for fixing misclicks or silly mistakes, but it's also a boon for experimentation and learning the ropes.

All this, combined with its more focused timeframe—the name's a giveaway—and fairly brisk campaign make it easy to get stuck into, but it's still dense and sometimes opaque. I thought it was great at launch, and I can appreciate it more now.

 

[PiR]

Quite a feat, but quite deserved!

 

[Zaarin]

Deserved indeed. While I've enjoyed the time I've spent with AoE4, it needs a lot of quality-of-life patches before it's really a good game. I'm still baffled you can't even choose your player color.

 

[pholkhero]

yes. its the innovations to 4x that make OW stand out, imo. takes it in directions civ should learn from

eidt to add: and the genre as a whole should learn from

 

[Uberfrog]

Very well deserved, and impressive given the competition this year!

I like Age of Empires 4 a lot but it’s ultimately a game that plays it very safe. Old World brings a lot of ideas together very successfully.

 

[Solver]

Personally I'm happy that AoE4 plays it safe. With the advent of MOBAs, the RTS genre pretty much died. It's been a decade since Starcraft 2 already. As someone who likes RTS but not MOBAs, I've been eager for the RTS genre to return, and AoE4 is a fantastic opportunity for that to happen. In 2021, releasing a major RTS game is in itself a risky move, so in terms of gameplay it was definitely a good idea for AoE4 to stick close to AoE2, and I'm optimistic that this is the beginning of an RTS revival, especially with a pretty strong RTS lineup likely in 2022.

 

[Zaarin]

Personally I'm happy that AoE4 plays it safe. With the advent of MOBAs, the RTS genre pretty much died. It's been a decade since Starcraft 2 already. As someone who likes RTS but not MOBAs, I've been eager for the RTS genre to return, and AoE4 is a fantastic opportunity for that to happen. In 2021, releasing a major RTS game is in itself a risky move, so in terms of gameplay it was definitely a good idea for AoE4 to stick close to AoE2, and I'm optimistic that this is the beginning of an RTS revival, especially with a pretty strong RTS lineup likely in 2022.

Agreed. AoE4's gameplay is great. It's recognizably an Age of Empires game, but it innovates just enough to carve out its own space (in particular, I love the defensible walls--AoE4 is a turtler's dream come true). Also the documentary-style campaigns are very, very impressive, and I say that as someone skeptical of documentaries. Like I said above, I'm just waiting for it to get some quality of life polishing.

 

[Uberfrog]

Yes, agreed on all points. Playing it safe was the right choice for AoE4, and Relic have produced a very impressive game. I’ve already sunk dozens and dozens of enjoyable hours into it and can’t wait for more campaigns and civs.

But I’m still glad the more innovative Old World got the nod from PC Gamer because it’s just a wonderful piece of game design.

 

[Forster]

It definitely deserves the award.