Maybe “rumors” isn’t the proper term, so let’s clear that up a bit; Relic Entertainment, the developers of Age of Empires IV, has all but confirmed that the game will be coming to Xbox consoles, and have hinted that it might be ported to other consoles as well.
For those who may be unaware, Relic Entertainment has recently announced the fourth game in the Age of Empires series. The first since Age of Empires III in 2005, this fourth installment in the famous historical RTS franchise has developed a massive amount of hype around it in a relatively short period of time. Though it’s switched hands from Ensemble Studios to Relic Entertainment, the bits that have been seen thus far have been tantalizingly beautiful.
Along with the switch of hands, Microsoft Studios became the publisher. Famous for destroying most of the things they touch, this was a bit alarming to fans of the franchise, but it seems to have been left mostly to Relic thus far.
Still, with Microsoft so involved, it makes sense that the game would see release on their consoles. What remains to be seen is if it will come to other platforms, and if so, when?
There’s been no mention of a release date, and only one incredibly short gameplay trailer has been released. That means that we don’t even know if we’ll still be in the current console generation by the time the game releases. Steam is about as eternal as a Lovecraftian Old One, so it’s a given that it’ll probably be released there, but will the PlayStation 4 still be relevant by release? Will it come to the Xbox One, or to the Scarlett? The Switch?
Real-Time Strategy games are also somewhat difficult to translate to console. While not impossible, the slower nature of console by demand of a controller makes the game quite different.
These games are all about your actions-per-minute and staying on your toes, running as many tasks as possible to keep your base/empire going as strong as possible. Massive numbers of hotkeys and shortcuts are used, especially in professional play, and a console’s controller typically just can’t do that nearly as well as a mouse and keyboard.
Regardless of which platform RTSs are more efficient on, it seems a given that Age of Empires IV is going to see a console release. Until then, we’ll just have to wait and see which consoles that includes.