The beloved Age of Empires series is still making progress on multiple of their games. Xbox Game Studios, the new developer of Age of Empires II since the original developer Ensemble Studios has since disbanded, is launching another expansion for AoE II on January 26, 2021. In addition, Age of Empires IV, which was originally announced three years ago in 2017, is steadily coming along in production with Relic Entertainment. AoE IV will be the first game launch since AoE III in 2005.
The brand new expansion, Lords of the West, launching on January 26 brings in two new civilizations, the Burgundians and the Sicilians. The Burgundian civilizations offer Coustillier, cavalry with a powerful shock attack, and Fallen Knights return 50% of their gold cost. For the Sicilians, players will be the Serjeant units that can construct the formidable Donjon. Bonuses for this civilization include 100% faster Castles and Town Centers as well as Farm upgrades that give villagers +1 capacity. Along with the new civilizations, there will also be three new, fully-voiced campaigns: Edward Longshanks, The Grand Dukes of the West, and The Hautevilles. Players can read more about the new campaigns on the official Age of Empires website.
In their end of the year update, AoE gives players an update on the fourth installment that still does not have a timeframe to be released. They assured players that they have their full attention on the fourth installment as well as improving AoE Definitive Editions in the meantime, as we see through this upcoming expansion for AoE II which was originally released in 1999.
We are making great progress on Age of Empires IV. I don’t want to make you jealous, but we are literally playing this game every single day—both in Washington and in Vancouver.
RTS development is funny: it takes a while to build the separate systems (AI, economy, sim, rendering, etc), and then it takes a while for them to come together. But when they do, you suddenly have a game—a game that needs debugging and balance and polish— but the core of the game that you know you’re going to ship.
The expansion is currently on pre-order now for $9.99 and will be released on January 26 in the Microsoft Store and Steam.