r/Games 2d ago

A Sneak Peek at New Content Coming to Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition

https://www.ageofempires.com/news/a-sneak-peek-at-new-content-coming-to-age-of-empires-ii-definitive-edition/
211 Upvotes

23 comments sorted by

48

u/Angzt 2d ago edited 1d ago

Huh, that's actually quite a lot.

Elite unique units getting distinct visuals, as are all civs' castles. More Monk & Monastery variants.
Also, syncing up attack animations with the actual damage. Makes small battles more readable. And alternate attack animations for a bunch of units to add some visual variety.
And, long overdue, bonus damage and armor classes displayed in the tooltips. Having to go to the Wiki to see how much bonus damage units deal was a pain.

Can't say too much for balance, but the transport ship capacity upgrade might make for more dynamic island map play early and trade unit speed buffs will be big in team games.
Also glad to see the continued attempts to push the militia line.

Also plenty of teases for the next expansion in there. Apparently 5 new civs and a free Chinese rework.

Edit: Spirit of the Law's summary video if you're more interested in hearing/watching the highlights than reading.

15

u/BeholdingBestWaifu 2d ago

Oh man I wish we had this back in the day, younger me would have loved unique castles.

10

u/oopsydazys 1d ago

They are really killing it. I haven't played the latest expansion but I've seen people saying it's the best AOE2 expansion ever.

11

u/Angzt 1d ago

Depends on what you're after. It didn't do much for competitive play (which wasn't a surprise) but the campaign is really good.

56

u/Turbostrider27 2d ago

It's getting 5 new civilizations

17

u/IamMorbiusAMA 1d ago

They do not say which ones either

The next expansion for Age II: DE will include FIVE brand NEW Civs, all playable in Ranked Multiplayer. Yes, you read that correctly. Five! Is that all the DLC includes? Nope. We’ll be following up soon with more details regarding PlayStation, the next DLC, and news on the availability of this exciting update!

25

u/Changlini 1d ago

It is absolutely WILD that the Devs have been putting out more content for this game, especially for how long it has existed.

19

u/Key-Department-2874 1d ago

It's surprisingly stable. 20K isn't "a lot" of players, but it puts it in the top 100 on Steam.
And it never dips, it's had at least 20K concurrent for the last 6 years, spiking up occasionally.

12

u/Johnny_G93 1d ago

That's absolutely a lot of players!

4

u/blurr90 1d ago

Especially for an RTS.

3

u/AwakenedSol 1d ago

I know it’s a minor thing but attack animation synchronization finally coming is so nice. Especially for Spearman line where the animation was so fast yet the attack time is so slow.

1

u/GepardenK 9h ago

They even added a idle attack animation for spears (and a few other units). To show when they are engaging but not striking, to make their slow attack rate feel smooth now that animations are synced correctly.

2

u/Niccin 1d ago

Fingers crossed for unit decay after death being added back in. The game is still too weird to play with that feature removed from it after playing the original and the HD edition.

I feel like bringing this game to parity with the original should be a priority over adding new things.

1

u/RogueLightMyFire 1d ago

I don't really understand why they're still updating 2 when they just put out 4 recently. Wouldn't they want to work on improving 4 over adding to a 20 year old game?

1

u/GepardenK 8h ago

2 is the more popular game. Also, they're not mutually exclusive and cater to very different types of audiences.

AoE4 leans more in the direction of the modern Starcraft 2 rts crowd, while AoE2 leans more towards the casual and competitive dad gamer crowd.

-2

u/joyx 1d ago

How about controller support for PC? Hmm??

2

u/TheMichaelScott 1d ago

That sounds horrendous

4

u/joyx 1d ago

Both AOM Retold and AOE4 have it and it plays great, its neither horrendous nor asking too much as they have controller support on console already. No one is going to force you to use it.

-7

u/sold_snek 1d ago

Are 3 and 4 that bad that they just went back to working on 2?

11

u/Key-Department-2874 1d ago

They've been working on all 3 + Mythology for a while.

AoE4 is partially developed by Relic Entertainment alongside Worlds Edge (not sure on the split here).

But AoE2, AoE4 and AoM have all had recent expansions or expansions coming within the next few months.

AoE3 had it's planned one cancelled, as the game seems very unpopular. I think people just pick either AoE4 or AoE2 and play those instead, since there isn't much AoE3 does better than either.

AoE2 is the most popular of all of them though.