LOS ANGELES, Oct 17 — Nostalgic re-release “Age of Empires: Definitive Edition” will miss the franchise’s 20th anniversary as its studio opts for an early 2018 release so that the modernization process may continue with “careful reverence.”
First released in October 1997, “Age of Empires” successfully blended historical empire-building with battlefield strategy.
In that respect it merged elements from “Civilization” and “Warcraft,” with players taking care of domestic, agricultural and military affairs at the same time.
Revolutionary for its time, Microsoft Studios is clearly cognizant of the fact that memories are selective.
First announced in June at the Electronic Entertainment Expo, a Definitive Edition had been telegraphed for release October 19, 2017.
It had been 12 years since “Age of Empires III” — a relatively short-lived “Age of Empires Online” had shut down in 2014, two years after its introduction — and the franchise’s original studio Ensemble was closed in 2009.
“In a living, thriving genre, norms continually evolve, technology advances, and player expectations change,” read an October 13 update on development progress.
“The challenge is to recreate the experience not as it actually was but as we all remember it.”
It’s a concession that could be taken as a reference to “Age of Empires II HD”, the 2013 re-release that was criticized upon reception for failing to extend its remit beyond an increase in graphical resolution.
“How can we modernize the game while preserving the fun, discovery and magic of that first experience?” the Definitive Edition team asks.
Those privy to an expanded beta test phase will be able to find out, as the DE team plans on “inviting thousands more players from the community into our closed beta between now and launch.”
In this way, developmental focus will be brought to bear upon the “single player campaign, multiplayer balance, fine-tuning the [multiplayer] lobby,” and other matters.
By targeting an early 2018 launch, “Age of Empires: Definitive Edition” avoids a collision with the free Fall 2017 update for strategy genre leviathan “Civilization VI” and could well find itself rubbing shoulders with “Frostpunk” and a “Pillars of Eternity II” expansion in the eyes of its prospective players.
The first is a snowy town-building and citizen-management game from 11 Bit Studios, a team well respected for the inventive real-time strategy series “Anomaly,” as well as conflict survival story “This War of Mine”.a
By contrast, “Frostpunk” approaches the empire-raising genre from a societal perspective, asking players to factor in the human cost or value of their leadership decisions, inverting standard power-fantasy tropes.
And while “Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire” occupies an entirely different genre as a combat-oriented, narrative-driven role-playing game, as a spiritual successor of the iconic “Baldur’s Gate” series its roots lie in the same nostalgia-tickling late-90s period as the “Age of Empires” franchise; both are likewise expected early 2018. — AFP-Relaxnews
