| Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition | |
|---|---|
| Developer(s) | Forgotten Empires[a] |
| Publisher(s) | Xbox Game Studios |
| Director(s) | Adam Isgreen |
| Designer(s) | Bert Beeckman |
| Series | Age of Empires |
| Platform(s) | Microsoft Windows |
| Release | November 14, 2019 |
| Genre(s) | Real-time strategy |
| Mode(s) | Single-player, multiplayer |
The latest Definitive Edition tries to sand those rough edges down a bit, make Age of Empires II a more appealing prospect for the modern player. And I should note up front: Forgotten Empires.
- Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition celebrates the 20th anniversary of one of the most popular strategy games ever with stunning 4K Ultra HD graphics, a new and fully remastered soundtrack, and brand-new content, “The Last Khans” with 3 new campaigns and 4 new civilizations.
- Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition is a remastered edition of the real-time strategy video game called Age of Empires II which was released back in 1999. The Definitive Edition offers an original AoE II experience enriched with multiple features and additions that make the game much more enjoyable to play in the modern times, as players are now more demanding than they were when AoE II was.
- Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition celebrates the 20th anniversary of one of the most popular strategy games ever with stunning 4K Ultra HD graphics, a new and fully remastered soundtrack, and brand-new content, “The Last Khans” with 3 new campaigns and 4 new civilizations.
Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition is a real-time strategy video game developed by Forgotten Empires and published by Xbox Game Studios.[1] It is a remaster of the original game Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings, celebrating the 20th anniversary of the original. It features significantly improved visuals, supports 4K resolution, and 'The Last Khans', an expansion that adds four new civilizations based on Central Asia and Eastern Europe, and four new campaigns.[2] It includes all previous expansions from the original and HD Edition. It was released on November 14, 2019.[3]
Gameplay[edit]
The core gameplay elements are shared heavily with the original but Definitive Edition builds upon it. The remaster includes new 4K graphics, new improved visuals for troops and buildings, the ability to zoom in and further out and a new spectator mode. It features a new campaign called The Last Khans and includes four new civilizations: Bulgarians, Cumans, Lithuanians and Tatars. Four new campaigns were added for the new civilisations: Ivaylo, Kotyan Khan, Tamerlane and Pachacuti which is about the Inca civilisation and replaces El Dorado from the HD Edition (Lithuanians do not appear as a playable civilization in any campaign; however, they represent Poles in the Ivaylo campaign).[2][4] It includes all previous expansions from the original (The Conquerors) and HD edition (The Forgotten, The African Kingdoms, Rise of the Rajas).[2][5]
Players can choose between the original AI, the updated HD Edition AI that was added alongside the HD Edition of the game, and a newer AI developed for the Definitive Edition.[6] The original AI had to cheat to be competitive, while the new AI is advanced enough to not require any cheating. When the old and new AIs were pitted against each other in a test, the new one easily defeated the old one.[7] Unit pathfinding is also supposedly improved upon.[8] Players can shift-queue villager tasks.[9]Farms now have the option to be replenished automatically.[10] A further expansion pack, Lords of the West, was announced on December 15, 2020 and is due for release on January 26, 2021. The Lords of the West will introduce two further civilisations, the Burgundians and the Sicilians, as well as three new campaigns, featuring Edward Longshanks, the Dukes of Burgundy and the Hautevilles.[11]
Release[edit]
On August 21, 2017 at Gamescom, Microsoft announced Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition was in development by Forgotten Empires, Tantalus Media and Wicked Witch Software.[12] On June 9, 2019, Microsoft revealed the gameplay trailer at Xbox E3 2019.[13] It released on the Xbox Game Pass in addition to Steam and the Windows Store on November 14, 2019.[5][14]
Reception[edit]
| Aggregator | Score |
|---|---|
| Metacritic | 84/100[15] |
| Publication | Score |
|---|---|
| PC Gamer (UK) | 78/100[16] |
/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/65821972/age1.0.png "Age Of Empires 2 Definitive Edition Or Hd")
Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition received 'generally favorable' reviews according to review aggregator Metacritic with a score of 84/100 from 32 reviews.[15]Windows Central's Cale Hunt praised the improved artwork, animations and quality of life additions but criticized the AIpath finding and pointed out a need for further balancing.[17]
Notes[edit]
- ^Additional work by Tantalus Media and Wicked Witch[1][2]
References[edit]
- ^ abWright, Steve (June 19, 2019). 'Aussie devs Wicked Witch, Tantalus working on Age of Empires 2'. Stevivor. Retrieved August 28, 2019.
- ^ abcdIsgreen, Adam; Empires, Franchise Creative Director for Age of (June 9, 2019). 'E3 2019: Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition Launching Fall 2019, Beta Coming Soon'. Xbox Wire. Retrieved August 28, 2019.
- ^Moore, Ewan (August 19, 2019). 'Age Of Empires 2: Definitive Edition Release Date Confirmed'. UNILAD. Retrieved August 29, 2019.
- ^'Age of Empires 2 Definitive Edition will release this fall'. PCGamesN. Retrieved September 1, 2019.
- ^ abJune 14, Marshall Honorof |; Pm, 2019 05:50. 'Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition Lives Up to Its Name at E3 2019'. www.laptopmag.com. Retrieved September 1, 2019.CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
- ^White, Sam (November 12, 2019). 'Age of Empires 2: Definitive Edition review – reverent treatment'. pcgamesn.com. Retrieved March 10, 2020.
- ^Shea, Brian. 'How Age Of Empires II: Definitive Edition Hopes It Is Living Up To Its Name'. Game Informer. Retrieved August 30, 2019.
- ^Calvin, Alex. 'Why Microsoft is investing so heavily in the Age of Empires series'. PC Games Insider. Retrieved October 24, 2019.
- ^Ray, Bodhisatwa (November 21, 2019). 'Age of Empires II Definitive Edition Review: Price in India and review'. BGR India.
- ^'Review: Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition'. Hardcore Gamer. December 12, 2019.
- ^'Pre-Order Age of Empires II: DE – Lords of the West, coming January 26th!' (in Lithuanian). Forgotten Empires. December 15, 2020. Retrieved December 20, 2020.
- ^Knezevic, Kevin (August 21, 2017). 'Age Of Empires 2 And 3 Remasters Announced'. GameSpot. CBS Interactive. Retrieved September 6, 2017.
- ^Giret, Laurent (August 19, 2019). 'Age of Empires: DE launches on Steam with cross play support, Age of Empires II DE also coming on November 14'. OnMSFT.com. Retrieved August 19, 2019.
- ^'Pre-purchase Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition on Steam'. store.steampowered.com. Retrieved October 11, 2019.
- ^ ab'Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition for PC Reviews'. Metacritic. Retrieved March 10, 2020.
- ^Brown, Fraser (November 12, 2019). 'Age of Empires 2: Definitive Edition review'. PC Gamer. Retrieved November 14, 2019.
- ^'Review — Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition is a remake true to its past'. Windows Central. November 12, 2019. Retrieved November 14, 2019.
The only problem with Age of Empires 2: Definitive Edition is that you can already play the original Age of Empires 2. Oh and you can also already play Age of Empires 2 HD, which tidied up the original's visuals and, according to its store page, brought in 'improved AI, workshop support, multiplayer, Steamworks integration and more!' So if you're anything like me, that might've made you think twice.
Thankfully, there is more to the Definitive Edition than that. Talking to Adam Isgreen, Creative Director for Age of Empires on the Microsoft side of things and Bert Beeckman, co-founder of Forgotten Empires, the studio that takes the lead on these remasters, the first thing I wanted to ask was why an HD owner would want to upgrade. There is actually a decent answer.
'Well, we sell expansions for the game as well and the expansions usually run about 10 bucks, right?' Isgreen tells me. 'So, within the Definitive Edition you have a whole new expansion, basically: you've got three new campaigns, a whole bunch of new missions, you've got four new civilizations to play with as well, so right there you're pretty much already at 10 dollars into the game.'
You'll also get five dollars off if you already own the HD edition, which helps (I didn't get confirmation for the UK side of things - know you're wondering - but imagine it will be an equivalent amount). 'So for five dollars more you also get brand new AI, an entirely new multiplayer with a super-secure, awesome anti-cheat multiplayer solution that's super-stable across all kinds of connections. You get all the new social features, you get everything like the unified community, there's just a lot of things - for any kind of player you are - to take advantage of.'
Fair enough. That chat was actually after Isgreen and Beeckman had taken me through a closer look at those features in the game, via a peek at the new Tamerlane campaign, the most striking of them being that new AI.
'If you look at the old AI, it cheated' Beeckman chuckled. 'It totally cheated. It doesn't cheat anymore.'
'If you put one AI, non-cheating, of the Definitive Edition version against seven of the original that do cheat, it just wipes the floor with them. No problem. Every time. So that's the kind of level we were aiming for here... the new AI is so good that you can watch replays of it to actually learn how to play the game, because it plays the game correctly now... it tries to follow the competitive meta - on the highest [difficulty] level - because we have 20 years of pro players doing tournaments and we tried to get that in the AI as well.'
You can also talk to the new AI in a more sophisticated way. I didn't see this in action but the example I was given was how, in the past, interactions were limited to things like 'do you have any spare Gold you could give me?' whereas now you could ask an AI ally 'hey, can you attack, with Knights, that specific player at that time', and they'll go ahead and do it.
Again, it's hard to really evaluate those sorts of claims without having a proper, lengthy hands-on, but to me the talk about an AI trained on competitive strategies is genuinely exciting. I might not ever see much benefit from it, mind - I'm one of those strategy players who hits a skill cap somewhere in the no-man's-land between teching-for-fun on Medium and struggling with a rush on Hard - but even the fact that the AI always sticks to the rules is promising enough for those like me who can now actually watch what they're doing and mimic it.
The rest of the improvements in the Definitive Edition fall comfortably into the category of neat stuff for nerds - which I really should stress I count myself as, too! - rather than big headline revolutions. Isgreen and Beeckman told me that the feedback they had was always a request not to touch the gameplay, and so their focus was on how they could help that 'stand out more' and deciding on looking mostly at how it's controlled, which first of all meant the ability to zoom in and out. Hope you were sitting down for that bombshell! (Although it is, actually, weirdly neat to see, especially if you've the dosh to witness it all in snazzy 4K).
Age Of Empires 2 Definitive Edition Hd Pack
There's now a global queue for what you're building. 'If you look at professional players,' Beeckman told me, 'they're constantly clicking on all the buildings to see what's going on, so it's really hard to follow the game. Now, it's there. You know what's going on, you don't have to click any more, there's more time to actually enjoy the game.' Or as Isgreen put it: 'We want you playing on screen, not necessarily playing on the UI.'
There's also a kind of 'automatic farm receiving,' so villagers will keep going as long as they have enough resources to do so (a boon for old school players who remember having to micro-manage this). There's a command queue, which has been in plenty of Age of Empires games and just about every other strategy game since, but was never actually in the original Age 2. There's better unit selection, so if you click and drag over a large amount of military units with a few villagers smattered in there, the game will know you're only trying to select the military ones and automatically leave out the villagers. No more 'why did my villagers stop working on my Wonder?!', as Isgreen put it. Even the ability to attack-move is new. 'All these foundational things that everyone takes for granted in RTS games now, we had to go put all that in.'
Age Of Empires 2 Definitive Edition Vs Enhanced Graphics Pack
It does add up - at least in theory. The Definitive Edition will have 27 campaigns in it; the original had five. There were 13 civilisations in the original and 35 now. I'm really not one for equating time spent in a game to value-for-money but, if that's your bag, Beeckman claimed that 'if you play through all the campaigns and win them all in one go, you have 200 hours of gameplay. That's how much there is, just in the campaigns, for 20 bucks.' Again, fair enough. It's cross-play between stores (Steam or Microsoft Live), 'basically it's like a mini version of Battle.net,' as Isgreen told me, so 'you have all the AoE games, all of your friends from both Steam and from Live; chat, everything across games all in one place, so we're kind of bringing the whole community together with Age' - hence the 'unified community' comment when I asked.
Age Of Empires 2 Definitive Edition And Hd
Basically, it does actually seem like a proper, ground-up job and a reasonable ask, given everything that's included - but it does also seem like it's still a big reasonable ask. It seems like the teams behind it, at Microsoft and at the three studios - Forgotten Empires, Tantalus, and Wicked Witch - are aware of that. The demo felt as much like a sales pitch as a walkthrough of what's new, because it's necessary if they're going to get players who bought Age of Empires 2 back in 1999, and then HD, so they could play it again with their friends, in 2013, to triple-dip on an even-more-HD version now. I can tell you it's pretty though (it really is), and I can tell I think I'm probably sold myself - even if it's just the cost of getting an AI friend to teach me how to play.