Three expansions followed, and last year Microsoft announced that they were working on a definitive edition, with 4K graphics, a remastered soundtrack and improved gameplay. These efforts were rewarded in 2013, when Microsoft brought modders-turned-developers Forgotten Empires on board to release a high-definition remaster of the original. When the official multiplayer servers went offline in 2006, players found alternatives in third- party multiplayer networks like GameRanger and current favourite Voobly. When Ensemble Studios shifted attention to newer iterations of the game-before being shut down by Microsoft in 2009-they took up the mantle of refining the game and adding new content through fan-created patches and mods. By 2010, the RTS game had retreated from centre stage, replaced by first-person shooters and role-playing games.īut Age of Empires II never truly went away, kept alive by a small global community of fans. Sadly, it was also the genre’s high watermark. But it was Ensemble Studios’ Age Of Empires franchise-and in particular the critically acclaimed Age of Empires II-that represents the pinnacle of the genre. The early 2000s saw the release of a number of seminal RTS titles, including Rise Of Nations, Command & Conquer: Generals and StarCraft. That was the golden era of the real-time strategy (RTS) game, a subgenre of strategy video games where the action takes place in real time rather than the conventional turn-based gameplay. The last time I played Age of Empires II was in the early 2000s, a few years after its release in 1999. To be fair, I’m not quite sure what I had in mind going in. When I received the invitation to attend a LAN party hosted by the Mumbai chapter of AoE India-an underground gaming community dedicated to a 19-year-old strategy video game-this wasn’t exactly what I was expecting. It’s all a little Silicon-Valley-meets-football-hooligans, the boisterous atmosphere belying the sheer geekery of the conversation. When the game finally ends, everyone troops out to the balcony to thump the winner on the back and immediately fall into a jargon-heavy discussion about tactics. The other people in the room have no such problems though, and for the next 25 minutes the energy never lets up. No release date has yet been announced for the game.Tiny pixelated characters scuttle across the screen, constructing farms, hunting boars and occasionally attacking each other, though the action moves far too fast for me to follow. An initial trailer teased gameplay at the X019 event, with the English and Mongol civilizations at play. The pack also includes The African Kingdoms - allowing players to experience the Berber, Malian, Ethopian and Portuguese civilizations - and the Rise of the Rajas, which introduced the Burmese, Khmer, Malay and Vietnamese civilizations to the game.Īge of Empires IV was announced in 2017, but few details had been released until now since then. The collection includes the base game and integrated many of the factions and features created by fans over the years, such as the Italians, Indian, Slav, Magyar and the Incan civilizations. The Definitive Edition was developed by the Forgotten Empires team to be an Age of Kings remaster released in time for the game's 20th anniversary. The addition will bring Eastern European factions, new campaigns and more to the game. RELATED: Is Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition's Solo Longshanks Campaign Worth Playing?Īge of Empires II: Definitive Edition will also be seeing updates, such as the new Dawn of the Dukes expansion. It has been suggested that gameplay will resemble historical documentaries during battles. The developers emphasized the fact that they worked with historians in order to bring franchise fans an educational experience, as well as an entertaining one. Additionally, the music will also be period-accurate and evolve as players advance through the ages. For example, it was revealed that languages will shift as players progress throughout the ages, meaning those playing the English will hear Old English from units at the beginning, then Middle and Modern English as they progress. Developers acknowledged the smaller scale of the video game, but revealed that this allowed them to focus on presenting each civilization in greater detail. The fan event also revealed one of the four historical campaigns in the upcoming game, involving William the Conqueror and the Norman conquest.
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