Age of Origins

First Impression

I downloaded Age of Origins last summer on a Tuesday night because I was bored of my usual games and wanted something about building up a civilization without spending real cash. The first thing I noticed was the graphics—they’re actually pretty nice for a free mobile game. The menu screens aren’t confusing, which surprised me because a lot of these games throw a million buttons at you right away. I jumped into the Stone Age, built a little village, and started sending out troops to fight monsters. It felt rewarding for the first couple of days, and I didn’t see any pop-ups begging me to buy gems or gold. That made me suspicious, honestly. I’m the type who checks the store page for “in-app purchases” before even tapping download, so I was waiting for the trap. It took about a week before I hit my first real wall where progress slowed down, but by then I was already hooked on the gameplay loop.

What It Does Well

The core loop of building your base, upgrading troops, and moving through different eras—from sticks and stones to future tech—kept me coming back. I really like how you can pause the action and think about your next move. It’s not a twitchy reaction game, it’s about planning. You pick a time period, unlock its buildings and units, then fight through levels to earn resources. There’s a campaign mode that gives you clear goals, and you get a little dopamine hit every time you finish a level and see your settlement improve. The variety of units is solid: archers, cavalry, tanks, even robots later on. For a free game, the amount of content is surprising. I played through the entire Stone Age and half of the Iron Age before I felt like I was grinding too much. Multiplayer was okay—I teamed up with a random person once on a Saturday night and we cleared a boss, which felt cool. But mostly I play solo because I don’t trust strangers with my time. The ads are optional too, which I appreciate. You can watch a 30-second ad for a speed boost or extra resources, but you’re never forced to.

Where It Falls Short

Here’s the part I hate: the pay-to-win wall hits hard after a few weeks. Around Middle Ages, the game starts assuming you’ll either grind for hours every day or open your wallet. Resources like gold and stone become super scarce, and upgrading a single building can take days of waiting unless you pay gems to skip. Gems are the premium currency, and you earn them so slowly it’s laughable. I saved for two weeks and couldn’t even buy one decent pack. The AI in battles gets repetitive too—enemy waves follow the same patterns, so once you figure out a strategy, every fight feels like a copy-paste. There are also bugs. On my iPhone 14, the game crashed twice during a boss fight in November, and once the sound cut out completely until I restarted. None of those crashes lost my progress, but it’s annoying. Also, the “historical accuracy” they advertise? Don’t believe it. It’s just a theme—you’re not learning anything real. My buddy who’s into history laughed at the cavemen fighting alongside medieval knights. So if you’re here for education, skip it. For mindless fun, it works.

Is It Worth the Price?

Since the app is free to download, the real question is: do you have to pay to enjoy it? For the first month, no. You can have plenty of fun without spending a cent. But after that, the game very clearly nudges—okay, shoves—you toward buying packs. There’s a $4.99 monthly subscription that gives you extra resources and a double-speed research, and a bunch of one-time offers that range from $1.99 to $99.99. I never bought any of them. I’m stubborn like that. I wanted to see how far I could get with zero dollars. Answer: about three months of on-and-off play, then I hit a level where my troops got wiped instantly unless I grinded for a week just to upgrade one thing. That’s when I put the game down for a while. I came back later, but the fun faded because the progress felt like a chore. So is it worth it? If you’re okay with slow progress and don’t mind replaying old levels, it’s fine. But if you’re impatient or competitive, you’ll feel pressured to pay. That’s not a scam—it’s a free game, they need to make money—but it’s worth knowing going in.

Developer & Support

I never had to contact support, which is usually a good sign for me. The game just worked most of the time. That said, I’ve read the App Store reviews, and I’ve seen a lot of complaints about lost accounts and purchases not going through. Some people say support takes days to respond, others say they never got their money back on a failed gem pack. I can’t confirm that myself, but it makes me nervous. I always play on the same device and never logged out, so I haven’t had account issues. The developer, CamelStudio, seems active with updates. They drop new events about once a month and fix bugs in patches. But I’ve also noticed the events are designed to push you toward buying the event pass for $9.99. That’s smart marketing, but it also tells me the company cares more about the store than the player experience. If you’re a free-to-play user like me, you’re treated like a second-class citizen. Not ignored entirely, but you can feel the difference.

Privacy & Safety

The app asks for a lot of permissions for a strategy game. It wants access to your storage, which I guess is for saving game data, but it also asks to track you across other apps and websites. I denied that tracking the first time it asked, and the game still runs fine. There’s a long privacy policy that I skimmed, and it basically says they collect your device ID, IP address, and gameplay info to serve you ads. That’s pretty standard for free games, but I don’t love it. No creepy stuff like reading your contacts or location, thankfully. The game has a chat feature for multiplayer, but I never use it because I don’t trust random people online. There’s also an option to link your Facebook or Google account to save progress, which I did because I didn’t want to lose my village. I haven’t gotten any spam from them. Overall, it’s about as safe as any other free mobile game. If you’re really worried, just deny tracking and don’t use the chat.