Hi all,
When we set out to re-release the original Age of Empires (as ‘Age of Empires: Definitive Edition’), we had many debates over the extent of restoration that we should undertake. The challenge of re-releasing a classic is just that: it’s a classic and it deserves to be treated with careful reverence. At the same time, in a living, thriving genre, norms continually evolve, technology advances, and player expectations change. This is as true for RTS as for any other genre. So, the challenge is to recreate the experience not as it *actually* was but as we all remember it. How can we modernize the game while preserving the fun, discovery and magic of that first experience?
To that end, rather than a final release of Age of Empires: Definitive Edition on October 19, we will instead be inviting thousands more players from the community into our closed beta between now and launch to allow for more in-depth testing across single player campaign, multiplayer balance, fine-tuning the lobby, etc.
We don’t have a final release date to share quite yet, but are targeting early 2018. In the meantime, we will be actively engaging with everyone participating in the closed beta to gather additional feedback, set up multiplayer sessions, and ensure that the Age of Empires: Definitive Edition that we are delivering is the Definitive Edition that you want.
Thank you,
The Age of Empires: Definitive Edition Team
On November 17, 2020 we’re celebrating a year of Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition with the biggest update we’ve ever shipped, including a new Battle Royale game mode, new features to help welcome our growing community, balance changes, bug fixes, and more! Age of Empires 2: Definitive Edition is set to release on November 14 on Steam, Game Pass PC, and Game Pass Ultimate. Matthew Byrd is a staff writer for Den of Geek. He spends most of his days. Age of Empires: Definite Edition released early last year.In 2017, along with the announcement of Age of Empires 4, Microsoft revealed that both AoE2 and AoE3 would both be getting definitive. Age of Empires, the pivotal RTS that launched a 20-year legacy returns in definitive form for Windows 10 PCs. Bringing together all of the officially released content with modernized gameplay, all-new visuals and a host of other new features, Age of Empires: Definitive Edition is the complete RTS package.
(Update 10/16/2017) Please note that the Windows Store page for Age of Empires: Definitive Edition is currently listing the planned release date as 12/31/2018. This is a placeholder, and does not reflect our target release date. We will update that page once the final release date has been announced. You can follow Age of Empires on Facebook and Twitter for the latest news.