Age of Wonders 4 and Endless Legend 2 Could Learn a Lot From Each Other
Age of Wonders 4 and Endless Legend 2 are two of the most interesting fantasy 4X games around today. However, they differ significantly in how they try to deliver that fantasy vision.
Both games understand that fantasy 4X is more than numbers, hexes, and build orders. They try to make the player feel like they are controlling something strange, powerful, and unique. Something with an identity of its own.
However, after playing both, there is one thought that keeps coming back to me:
These two games would do well to learn from each other. Or maybe we could just combine them into a frankenstein monster with Claude somehow?
The thing is, Age of Wonders 4 has the superior narrative flow and campaign flavor, while Endless Legend 2 has stronger faction identity through asymmetric gameplay and better combat pacing. With just a little borrowing from each other, both games would only benefit, in my humble opinion.
Why Age of Wonders 4 Shines: Narrative Flow and Flavorful Events
The greatest thing Age of Wonders 4 does better than almost any other fantasy 4X game is make the world feel alive through its variety of events, transformations, tomes, realm traits, and campaign moments. The narrative is not always deep in the traditional RPG sense, but it has a constant sense of flavor and movement.
There could be a game where you control zealous frost dwarves exploring a cursed world. Alternatively, you might lead barbaric ratkin, angelic elves, necromantic toads, or industrial reavers armed with cannons and war machines. Even when the story itself is not especially complex, the game gives your civilization a sense of personality as the campaign develops.
That is Age of Wonders 4‘s greatest strength, in my opinion. It understands that narrative in a 4X game does not necessarily mean lengthy cutscenes or massive walls of text. Sometimes it is a strange event, a cursed realm, a magical tome, a race transformation, or the way your civilization changes over the course of the campaign.
This variety matters. It helps each campaign feel like a new story, not just another map.
Endless Legend 2 has its own lore, and Amplitude has always been excellent at creating interesting factions and worlds. The factions are interesting, the setting is interesting, and the presentation is amazing. However, the moment-to-moment narrative flow does not hit me the same way Age of Wonders 4 does.
Age of Wonders 4 creates more of those small campaign moments that make the world feel strange, cool, and exciting. Endless Legend 2 has everything it needs for that, but I would like to see more of it. More faction-specific flavor. More surprising events. More narrative spice during the actual campaign.
Why Endless Legend 2 Wins: Faction Identity and Combat Pacing
However, Endless Legend 2 has two major advantages over Age of Wonders 4: faction asymmetry and combat pacing.
This is where Endless Legend 2 really stands out. Its factions feel more distinct because they do not just look different or start with different bonuses. They play differently. Their identity is built into the way they expand, fight, manage resources, and approach the world.
That kind of asymmetric gameplay gives each faction a clearer mechanical identity. You are not just roleplaying a different fantasy culture. You are actually engaging with different systems and different priorities. That is something Endless Legend has always done well, and Endless Legend 2 seems to understand that faction identity should be felt through gameplay, not just lore.
Age of Wonders 4 has plenty of faction expression, but it is more flexible and modular. That has its own strengths, especially for customization, but it can also make factions feel less distinct from one another mechanically. Endless Legend 2 feels stronger in that specific area because its factions are more deliberately shaped around asymmetry.
The other area where Endless Legend 2 feels better to me is combat pacing.
Age of Wonders 4 battles are fun, complex, and interesting to play. There is real pleasure in unit positioning, spellcasting, and terrain manipulation. However, the problem is that battles can sometimes become too dominant and take too much focus away from the strategy layer.
In 4X games, combat should matter, but it should not necessarily hijack the campaign.
That is where Endless Legend 2 feels better to me. Its battles are faster and easier to resolve. You still get meaningful tactical decisions, but not at the cost of making the game feel less like a 4X game.
That is very important in this genre, because the greatest pleasure in 4X games often comes from expansion, planning, economy, diplomacy, exploration, city building, and long-term decision-making. Combat is one part of the gameplay, but it should not overwhelm the rest of it. Endless Legend 2 seems to understand that.
The Trade-Off
This is the greatest difference between the two games, in my opinion.
Age of Wonders 4 is more flavorful, varied, and narratively engaging. Endless Legend 2 is cleaner, faster, and stronger when it comes to faction asymmetry and combat pacing.
Endless Legend 2 gives its factions better mechanical identity. Its factions feel more unique because their asymmetry changes how you actually play. That is a huge strength. However, Age of Wonders 4 still makes me feel more connected to the flow of a campaign because its world throws more weird, flavorful, and memorable moments at me.
That is the strange trade-off. Endless Legend 2 may have the stronger faction identity on paper and through gameplay systems, but Age of Wonders 4 often feels better as a living fantasy campaign because its narrative flow has more personality.
Neither approach is bad. In fact, both games are good because they have clear identities. Age of Wonders 4 focuses on tactical fantasy wars, emergent magical narratives, and customizable faction expression. Endless Legend 2 emphasizes elegant 4X pacing, stronger faction asymmetry, and cleaner campaign momentum.
But each game also highlights a weakness in the other.
When playing Age of Wonders 4, sometimes I wish the battles moved faster and left more room for the strategy layer. When playing Endless Legend 2, sometimes I wish the world had more of Age of Wonders 4‘s narrative flavor, surprises, and campaign variation.
The Ideal Fantasy 4X Is Somewhere Between Them
The ideal fantasy 4X would probably be somewhere between Age of Wonders 4 and Endless Legend 2.
Give me the narrative variety, strange events, magical identity, and campaign flow of Age of Wonders 4. Then give me the faction asymmetry, combat pacing, and respect for the overall strategy layer that Endless Legend 2 brings to the table. The result would be absolutely fantastic.
I want my fantasy 4X games to feel like living worlds, not just sandboxes. Age of Wonders 4 succeeds at that by adding flavor and variety through its events, tomes, transformations, and campaign structure. But I also want my games to move. I want to spend more time making meaningful decisions and less time fighting battles that sometimes feel more important than they actually are. Endless Legend 2 does that better.
Both games are great. They have their own advantages, but they also reveal something important about the future of fantasy 4X games: narrative is important. Flavor is important. Combat is important. Faction identity is important. But pacing is just as important.
Age of Wonders 4 could learn a few things from Endless Legend 2‘s restraint and stronger faction asymmetry. Endless Legend 2 could learn a few things from Age of Wonders 4‘s personality and narrative flow.
And if both of these franchises continue developing in interesting ways, fantasy 4X fans will be in a pretty good place.