Back on November 14th, Xbox Game Studios Released the Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition onto the Steam library.
This isn’t the first remaster of Age of Empires II. Back in 2013, Xbox Game Studios came out with an HD edition of the second game in the franchise. This HD rehaul enhanced the look of the game on a visual level, bringing it to modern times with beautiful graphics and support for multiplayer, as well as improving the dated AI opponents that were more than predictable to veteran players.
This time around, the developers weren’t settling on making the game prettier. The Definitive Edition is more than a simple beautification project and comes with a myriad of bonuses.
For starters, the game is getting another graphical overhaul, bringing it out of 2013 and into 4K Ultra HD. Additionally, the soundtrack has been fully remastered with modern equipment. Perhaps most significantly, they’ve added a considerable amount of content to the game itself.
This new content is titled “The Last Khans” and features four new civilizations, three of which have their own campaigns. These four civilizations are the Bulgarians, Cumans, Lithuanians, and Tatars. In regards to the new campaigns, all three are focused on battles in Eastern Europe and Northwestern Asia.
Always true to history, these civilizations are also primarily cavalry based. This focus provides an interesting basis for combat, as they’re unlikely to excel against each other. More importantly, the addition of any civilization forces the readjustment of strategies for other civilizations, no matter how long they’ve been in the game.
It’s refreshing to see a definitive edition actually add so much content, and the community at large seems to agree. After only three days, the game has already accrued thousands of reviews on Steam. As of writing this, it stands with a “very positive” rating, and is likely to either stay that way or to increase to “overwhelmingly positive.”
Another note is how much fuel this is for the massive, unstoppable hype train that Age of Empires IV has amassed. While Xbox Game Studios has been dropping a few Age of Empires related pieces over the last decade or so to make sure that people knew the franchise wasn’t dead, seeing them put this much attention into it is an amazingly beautiful sight.
Regardless of what civilization you pick, the Age of Empires II’s definitive edition is going to be one of the most notable strategy games of the year. Make sure you embrace the chance to experience it as well.
