Tuesday, August 22nd 2017
Microsoft Announces Age of Empires IV, Developed by Relic Entertainment
I remember Age of Empires II fondly; it was my first PC game, really. The intro sequence of chess really served to put my young mind racing towards ideas of military movements and countermovements, and led me towards devouring historical romances accompanying the exploits of Alexander the Great (Valerio Massimo Manfredi's novels), and Hannibal Barca (I'm partial to Ross Leckie in this one). Now, Microsoft has announced yet another installment in this PC-exclusive series, after Age of Empires III's somewhat lukewarm reception. Age of Empires IV is coming for all of your medieval RTS needs.
Since Microsoft has since dismantled Age of Empires historical developers Ensemble Studios (while finishing development on the first Halo Wars, no less), the helm of the series is now being taken by Relic Entertainment (of Warhammer 40,000K: Dawn of War and Company of Heroes fame), in partnership with Microsoft Studios. In an announcement on its website, Relic wrote that "[We] couldn't be more proud to be a part of the legacy, (...) We can't wait to tap into our strengths as a studio to fuse historical context with deep strategic gameplay, and to bring this franchise back to the forefront of gaming and into the hands of its beloved community." And this is not all: in addition to the previously announced Definitive Edition of Age of Empires I, which will be out in the wild come October 19th, Microsoft also announced Definitive Editions of Age of Empires 2 and 3. Fest your eyes on the trailers below.
Sources:
Relic News, via TechSpot
28 Comments on Microsoft Announces Age of Empires IV, Developed by Relic Entertainment
Oh well, I feel thrilled to see all 3 AoE titles being remastered. Played all 3 throughout my gaming years.
But this is going to be another kind of beast.
People hoping for another AoK - that would be a wasted opportunity, there will be a DE edition for that. It would start to feel old very fast if it were basically the same game.
Same for AoE1, if you want to play that, you will be able to with the DE, after playing the beta, my impression is that the game looks good, touched up to be playable in 2017.
Now come the slightly odd thing DE of AoE3, the game is completely playable as it is, guess they want to integrate it with Win 10 features and making it look even better. Many hate on the game for not being "AoE" for so many stupid reasons, home cities and card decks is a great example disregarding the fact that it was a great feature, it made sense in the time setting and gave the player strategic options. The only thing that was a bit too far was removing resource drop-offs, but in reality it didn't make much of a difference just made the game a tad faster paced.
What I'm hoping to see from AoE4? The core of the series with new features! The core in my opinion is: resource gathering (food, wood, gold stone, maybe more), a generous amount of buildings, both economic and military and of course give me the ability to build walls, maybe even force me to do so (AoE3 kinda rarely needed them)?
The only fear I got is that this doesn't end up "Company Of Empires", but by just looking at the reveal trailers writing, it seems unlikely. Heck, maybe some light tactics could even be fun. Keep an open mind, don't be a twat.