The basic real-time technique franchise Age of Empires, revealed by Microsoft since its debut 25 years in the past, will come to Xbox for the primary time on the finish of January. Age of Empires 2: Definitive Version, a 2019 remaster of the 1999 sport, will launch Jan. 31 by way of Xbox Sport Move, and the extra modern Age of Empires 4 will get a console launch “later within the yr,” Microsoft stated on Tuesday.
The announcement didn’t specify which Xbox consoles would get the brand new variations, past saying each video games shall be accessible by way of the Microsoft Retailer, Xbox Sport Move, and Xbox Sport Move Final. The console variations will nonetheless help keyboard and mouse inputs, and likewise be playable with a controller.
Age of Empires 4 — and all its trebuchets — launched Oct. 28, 2021, and on PC Sport Move the identical day.
“We knew that bringing the complexity of RTS to Xbox consoles was an enormous activity and one we needed to strategy fastidiously and thoughtfully,” co-developer World’s Edge stated in Tuesday’s assertion. “The workforce has been working arduous to convey an expertise that not solely feels nice utilizing a controller, but additionally teaches gamers the way to play on Xbox.”
Age of Empire’s controller inputs generally is a bit tough because the sport entails a lot of clicking round on varied items and scrolling across the map. The Xbox variations will function a tutorial that can present new customers the way to play the sport, in addition to the controller-specific inputs. The builders additionally added a sport AI to assist make useful resource administration “environment friendly and intuitive.”
Age of Empires 2 and Age of Empires 4 will help cross-platform play, permitting console customers to play alongside Home windows PC veterans. So we’ll see later the way it the Xbox variations measure up in opposition to mouse-and-keyboard rivals.
