From May 4th through 15th, owners of Age of Empires IV on Steam will have an opportunity to dive into all the amazing content, updates and changes coming in Season Five! The Age of Empires IV Public Update Preview (PUP) presents an opportunity for our incredible players to get hands-on experience with exciting changes ahead of major updates. They also provide an opportunity to give feedback and help us prepare for upcoming major releases. PUP builds will generally contain new features, content, balance changes and bug fixes.

A New Game Mode, Team Voice Chat, Trade Updates and More!
Among the content highlighted in this PUP is Empire Wars, a new, quick-to-action game mode where players start with a burgeoning empire, ready to dive into combat or advance to the next Age! Players begin the match with a variety of pre-built buildings and villagers already tasked on resource collection. Not only that, but you'll be able to try out three news maps before they officially go live, including Golden Heights, Migration, and Volcanic Island!

The Grounded team is excited to bring Update 1.2.0 to the community this week. Rightfully titled The Super Duper update, this massive update brings with it many quality-of-life changes, more than a hundred new items to craft, a brand new Base Coziness feature, and wasps, a new terrifying creature to fight. But first, let's dive into the Super Duper… an item duplication machine!

THE SUPER DUPER UPDATE
Item Duplication - The Super Duper is a new piece of equipment installed in the Oak Lab. Players will find the Super Duper machine the next time they visit BURG.L! This machine will allow players to duplicate specific equipment and items using Raw Science. To use the Super Duper, players must locate Duper Discs throughout the yard. The first disc unlocks operation of the machine, while the other discs grant the player the ability to unlock duping of higher-tier equipment and items. It can even duplicate trinkets, unique items, and upgrade stones. Making this even more helpful for players, any item duplicated will include all of the item's Smithing upgrades, saving a lot of time for when you and your friends need to gear up quickly and get back to adventuring.

Brad Smith, vice chair and president at Microsoft has been doing the rounds with the UK press, and the incensed executive continues to express anger about the nation's Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) preventing his company's proposed buyout of Activision Blizzard. The UK antitrust watchdog yesterday blocked the deal on the grounds that a merging of (already massive) games publishers could result in a potentially catastrophic skew in Microsoft's favor within the fast growing cloud gaming market sector. The CMA's latest findings suggest that the takeover would "lead to reduced innovation and less choice for UK gamers over the years to come." This verdict comes as a major blow to Microsoft's gaming division following a number of victories - including Japan's competition regulator approving the takeover bid late last month. The company's gaming division (Xbox Game Studios) is awaiting verdicts from the EU commission and US Federal Trade Commission.

In a business-themed podcast interview (conducted by the BBC), Microsoft boss Brad Smith declared that the UK government's blocking of the merger represented a bad move "for Britain" in terms of attracting international business. Microsoft has been operating in country for four decades, and Smith casts doubt on that relationship - in his opinion - the mega corporation has experienced its "darkest day" in the region: "It does more than shake our confidence in the future of the opportunity to grow a technology business in Britain than we've ever confronted before. People are shocked, people are disappointed, and people's confidence in technology in the UK has been severely shaken." Smith insists that fledgling companies should look elsewhere to start a base of operations: "There's a clear message here - the European Union is a more attractive place to start a business than the United Kingdom."

In February, we brought a preview of PC Game Pass to 40 new countries for the first time ever. The response was incredible. Thank you to all the players who jumped in to test the experience and help us shape the preview. New members looking to join PC Game Pass can head to PC Game Pass website to learn more about local pricing as well as how to sign up.

To celebrate the launch, new members will receive a special welcome offer for their first three months for a limited time. Those who were a part of our Insider Program will receive two free months of PC Game Pass membership, with no further action needed, as a thank you for helping us shape the experience and being one of the first PC Game Pass members in your country. This will be available directly in member's accounts in the coming days.

The Return of Rome campaign is set for a May 16 2023 release date according to a tweet posted by the official Age of Empires account. The latest campaign expansion for Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition follows several (almost) yearly DLC drops since the re-mastered strategy game's debut in late 2019 - Lords of the West (January 2021), Dawn of the Dukes (August 2021) and Dynasties of India (April 2022). Last year's India campaign added a significant amount of content, in the form of three new civilizations: the Bengalis, Dravidians, and Gurjaras. Three new campaigns were added to the base game and introduced a trio of new empires: Babur, Rajendra, and Devapala. The entire Indian civilization within the game was renamed to the Hindustanis.

Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition - Return of Rome was first announced, albeit briefly, during a livestream on 25 October 2022, which celebrated the 25th anniversary of the real time strategy game series. Details are scarce about the actual content on offer, but the upcoming campaign is expected to feature all 16 of the original civilizations from the first entry in the franchise (AoE) according to an internal Xbox Games Studios memo.