Age of Empires IV: Yue Fei’s Legacy is now available, arriving May 7 on Xbox Series X/S, PC (via Steam and the Microsoft Store), and PlayStation 5. It’s one of the biggest single content drops the game has seen since its 2021 launch, packing in an eight-mission story campaign, a new playable civilization, four multiplayer maps, and two fresh biomes. If you play on PC or Xbox with Game Pass, it’s included at no extra cost. Otherwise, the expansion is priced at $14.99.
At the heart of Yue Fei’s Legacy is a campaign built around one of Chinese history’s most legendary figures. Players follow General Yue Fei alongside fellow commander Han Shizhong as they try to protect a young Song prince while the Jin Dynasty presses its advantage after the northern Chinese heartland falls. The story doesn’t just focus on battlefield tactics—court politics and shifting loyalties are treated as threats every bit as dangerous as enemy armies. That tension fits the historical backdrop: Yue Fei’s real-life story is closely tied to the Song–Jin Wars of the 12th century and ends in tragedy, with betrayal and corruption at the center of his fate.
While the campaign is told from the Song Dynasty perspective, multiplayer gets the biggest shake-up thanks to the arrival of the Jin Dynasty as a full civilization for skirmish, ranked play, and Crucible. The Jin are designed around three defining systems that shape how they expand, fight, and finish matches. Their horse grasslands work in tandem with stables to speed up cavalry production, pushing an aggressive tempo. Emissaries can be sent to neutral settlements to set up Tributaries, creating steady streams of food and military benefits over time. And for late-game power, the Jin lean into a gunpowder-focused phase that turns endgame conflicts into dramatic sieges filled with smoke, explosions, and heavy pressure.
Their unit roster supports that identity with several standout options. The Iron Pagoda brings the impact of heavy shock cavalry. Mounted grenadiers combine speed with explosive area damage, while Eruptors deliver close-range gunpowder fire with a scatter-style hand cannon. Bed crossbows add long-range control and suppression. Economy play also gets a twist through mounted villagers, giving the Jin a way to harvest exposed resources faster without stretching too far into danger. On top of that, the civilization comes with its own masteries track, unique ranked rewards, and custom music created specifically for this expansion.
Beyond factions and missions, Yue Fei’s Legacy expands the battlefield itself. Four new maps join the rotation, and they introduce two new biomes: Yellow River and Madagascar. Expect a mix of windswept grasslands, rich river valleys, and harsh desert plateaus that shift both visibility and positioning in ways that can reward smarter scouting and map control.
The expansion launch also syncs with a major competitive update: the Summer Ranked Season began on May 7 and introduces a new annual structure built around four seasons. Each season now runs for three months, with the first season starting early to align with the release.
Age of Empires IV was originally developed by Relic Entertainment and has continued under ongoing support from World’s Edge. The base game sits at an 81 on Metacritic, while early user impressions for Yue Fei’s Legacy have been mixed at launch, with discussion focusing largely on whether the price matches the amount of content compared to earlier add-ons. Even so, more updates are on the way, with additional Age of Empires IV content planned for later in 2026 as part of the game’s continuing roadmap.
