Take command of the forces of light in the Age of Wonders 4: Archon Prophecy expansion. Join the celestial Archons as they strike back against Urrath’s corrupt forces. Consult the oracles, glimpse hidden prophecies that shape the fates of the realms and become the master of your own destiny. Thread on hallowed ground as you explore new Forms, Tomes and Blessed Regions inhabited by new Wildlife.
Welcome the Griffon Update, a gift from the Archon. This Free Update, available to all owners of Age of Wonders 4, brings tons of new Features and Improvements. Create Factions in more detail than ever before with the Extra Faction Data, a set of customization options that allow players to assign Custom City Names and Heroes to their Factions, or experience the reworked Mage and Ritualist Hero Classes as well as the brand new Warlock Class.
Check below for all the details on the Archon Prophecy Expansion and the Griffon Update.
Below, you can find a lot of information about the new content:
Archon Prophecy Expansion
New Forms: Elysian & Ancients
Two New Forms bring their eternal struggle to the soul of your empire.The Elysians are ascended, divine, and heavenly beings that bring a touch of the divine to your realm. The Ancients are withered and bent beings from the depths of history - and other, more sinister places. Older and wiser than time itself, they’ve adapted and overcome their corruption with the use of magical enhancements.
Learn More: Dev Diary & Video
New Culture: Architects
Build your empire with the help of the Architects — construct vast, magical monuments within your cities and dedicate them to the affinity of your choice to empower your economy and unlock powerful bonuses. The Architects are a culture evoking the empires of antiquity, a people dedicated to the creation of something greater than themselves.
Builds great monuments in the domain of their cities. These empower their economy and grant them additional Affinity.
Gain Wondestone, a unique resource gotten from Magic Materials that the Architect culture seeks to acquire to build their monuments.
Architect Units gain +1 Damage for every stack of Affinity Incarnate granted by their Monument and change their Damage type to match your Dominant Affinity.
New Tomes
Pull through when the odds are against you and fight back in the toughest of moments. Manipulate probability, prevent enemy attacks and foresee the downfall of your enemies. Evoke Archonic magic of purity and rebirth, summon celestial allies and ascend to the ranks of the Archon. Corrupt their power and use their knowledge to protect your undead from those who wield the powers of light and fire. Walk along the path of divinity or corrupt it, only you decide your destiny.
New Hero Class: Battlesaint
Answer the call of the divine with the power of the Battlesaint. Whether guiding the faithful as a sacred support unit or standing firm as a martyr-like tank, the Battlesaint turns virtue into strength and sacrifice into victory.
New Content: Prophecy Traits
Forge your destiny with Prophecy Traits, new society traits that help you shape your empire. Early in your journey a vision will appear, challenging you to define your ruler’s purpose and ambitions. How you interpret it is up to you, but fulfilling the Prophecy will unlock powerful rewards.
Factions with the Vision of Promise are destined to settle in a land of promise. It is up to the Ruler where they think this can be found.
Factions with a Vision of Destiny are destined for a great purpose, fated to attract the attention of the Endaillon. The ruler chooses a mark their people bear.
Factions with the Vision of Ruin are destined to bring about great change to the Realm. Your people foresee a ruinous event they are destined to bring about but do they prevent it or bring about the foreseen ruin.
Learn More: Video
New Content: Blessed Regions
Blessed regions are a new group of Custom Regions, making use of a new Celestial Terrain Overlay. These regions will give a minor economic bonus and annexing Blessed provinces will not incur a Stability Penality. Included in these Blessed Regions is a new Landmark, the Fountain of Creation. As if an extension of the well of creation itself, this fountain spreads the blessings of creation across the Realm.
New Story: Divine Intervention
The Story of Age of Wonders 4 continues. The war against Urrath is intensifying, and its Generals are laying siege to Worlds where Dreamers reside. Sundren has left to fight the Umbral Abyss, avoiding all consequences of the chaos she wrought and the Godir of Magehaven are desperate. The Pantheon searches for aid against Urrath and The Gloomwatch might have a lead.
Even More Content
While we’re sure the above has your mouths watering, there’s even more that you can enjoy. Further included in the Archon Prophecy Expansion are:
8 Achievements
5 New Music Tracks
4 New Premade Rulers
New Realm Templates & Realm Traits
New Exotic Mount Traits
New Archon Interface Skin & Banner Emblems
Griffon Update Highlights
New Content: Flaws
Flaws are a new type of Form Trait that introduces meaningful drawbacks to your form. Unlike typical traits, Flaws add points rather than costing them when selected, allowing you to invest more into strengths elsewhere. Flaws aren’t meant to be shrugged off, they should feel impactful - traits you’ll need to actively embrace in creative ways.
Learn More: Video
Updates: New Hero Classes
Magic Hero Classes have gotten their themes and mechanics split up to create new classes that more effectively cover their associated themes. These changes increase the variety of mage-type heroes that show up during the game, and improve replayability.
Elementalist - This class is more focused on magical damage, setting up attacks or delivering the killing blow with powerful Elemental abilities.
Ritualist - This class is a nature based support class with many healing and utility abilities.
Warlock - This class covers the darker magical aspects such as necromancy and curses. They mix the role of a debuffing battlemage with a bit of support through both healing and summoning
New Feature: Extra Faction Data
We’ve expanded Faction Creation with a new Advanced Settings menu to give players more control over their custom Factions. Improve your faction identity with custom City Name Lists & fully handcrafted recruitable Heroes and define a Tome Path for the AI to follow when they take control of your creation. This feature is designed for players who want a more consistent and immersive experience—particularly when playing in worlds where their own custom Factions show up.
New Features: AI Starting Bonus & Combat Difficulty
The game difficulty isn’t always quite there. While tools are already in place to adjust challenges these often result in artificial or uninspired gameplay. At the same time, the AI handles all Tactical Combat encounters the same way. This one-size-fits-all approach leaves new players feeling overwhelmed and seasoned players feeling unchallenged. That’s why we’re offering new ways to adjust difficulty levels.
AI Strategic Bonuses are a way of giving selected AI players tailored early-game bonuses. These are designed to help them scale faster and apply pressure sooner, making each playthrough feel more tense, risky, and unpredictable.
Tactical AI profiles change the behavior and difficulty of the combat AI to make Tactical Combat feel more balanced, dynamic, and satisfying.
Learn More: Video
Quality of Life and more
For each Major Update we don’t just work on new Content, Balance Changes or Fixes. We always try to dedicate some time to improvements that make the game easier or more accessible to use. With the Griffon Update we have a brand new set of Quality of Life Improvements for you to enjoy.
Tired of the tedium that comes from world conquest? Multi Stack Movement allows players to select up to 6 Stacks and give them a combined Move Order. Notification Settings give you more control over the notifications within the game and allows players to tailor the notifications to suit their playstyle. And there's now a small chance that items you made in the item forge show up in future sessions. These Persistent Forged Weapons are saved when you finish a session and have a small chance to be given as rewards for Quest, Events & clearing location.
Read the full patch notes here
All you need to know about new content
During this campaign we released lots of Dev Diaries, Streams and Feature Highlight videos, feel free to explore them below!
Moreover, we are inviting you for a post-launch Dev Stream this Thursday (14th of August), 14:00 CEST, during which you can ask the Devs questions, share your feedback about Archon Prophecy or Griffon Update, or just have some fun!
Watch on our YouTube this Thursday!
For all the fans of our art team
Our amazing Art Team prepared an Art Blast - a lot of artwork, concept arts, animations and just amazing pieces were released today on Art Station. Check it out and maybe you will find new cool wallpapers today (we definitely did).
What’s next?
We have two news to share:
There will be Expansion Pass 3. Yes. It is official! While we cannot provide more details at the moment, we strongly recommend you subscribe to your channels and newsletter so you won’t miss the news when the time comes!
As we mentioned before, Expansion Pass 2 will be become a dynamic bundle, called Last Chance Bundle. Which means you will be able to “complete the set” if you already bought a standalone DLC from the pass and get a nice discount. The switch will happen at 18:00 CEST later today.
Follow us and be the first to know when we drop new content!