Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition review — Gorgeous new look, more enjoyable than ever

Source: Microsoft

About twenty years agone, the 2nd installment in the real-fourth dimension strategy (RTS) Age of Empires serial was released for PC. Developed past Ensemble Studios and published by Microsoft, Age of Empires 2: The Age of Kings saw an expansion — Age of Conquerors — about a year afterwards, bringing more than campaigns, civilizations, and some quality of life (QoL) fixes.

This collection of games was played incessantly past a huge crowd of RTS fans and eventually saw an HD remake in 2022. Age of Empires II: Hard disk Edition spawned its ain collection of expansion packs, including The Forgotten, The African Kingdoms, and Ascension of the Rajas, complete with a bunch of new civilizations, campaigns and a graphics reworks that better suited modernistic hardware and displays.

Now, with Age of Empires Ii: Definitive Edition (AoEII:DE) — developed by Forgotten Empires, Tantalus Media, and Wicked Witch and published by Xbox Game Studios — fans of the series are getting an impressive graphics overhaul with new animations and 4K support, three new campaigns with four new civilizations, remastered audio, new units and technologies, enough of QoL changes, and an improved multiplayer experience with leaderboards, ladders, matchmaking, and improved spectator mode. I've been playing AoEII:DE for about a week to cheque out whether or not it'due south worth a buy for long-time veterans and newcomers to the serial.

An RTS for the ages

Historic period of Empires 2: Definitive Edition

Bottom line: In that location is some wonky balancing and AI logic axiomatic, but Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition is an absolute joy to play. Just be sure your PC can handle the requirements in order to get the full experience.

Pros

• Includes all previous expansions and one new expansion
• 4 new civilizations for 35 total
• Artwork and animations are cute
• Tons of quality of life improvements
• Reworked AI that puts up a far better challenge without adulterous

Cons

• Some AI pathing and logic is a bit wonky
• Further balancing will be for the best
• Factory graphics settings are non platonic for returning players
• Requires a considerable amount of PC ability for all-time experience

What I loved about Age of Empires Two: Definitive Edition

Source: Windows Central

Age of Empires II isn't a game that needed any major mechanics reworked, and that'southward been honored hither in the Definitive Edition. I played a lot of the original and Hard disk versions, and I was able to jump into a Definitive Edition skirmish and play without having to make many adjustments. Hotkeys can be gear up to archetype or to a grid-similar method — the tiptop row of the keyboard is used for the peak line of your commands, center row for middle line, and on — that's easier for newcomers to pick upwardly. Gameplay is immediately familiar, only the myriad QoL improvements also make it seem new.

Age of Empires II has never looked and so skillful, and the developers take kept the feel of the original game.

I'one thousand even so uncovering small tidbits that make macro- and micro-managing easier. Notwithstanding, there are some significant changes that benefit anybody and ultimately brand the game a lot more than fun to play in Night Age through to Imperial Age. Starting out, y'all can at present ready farms to automatically reseed every bit long as forest stocks allow. No more than spamming the farm queue push button and eventually running out ten minutes subsequently. Units can have multiple waypoints set at once, pregnant y'all can nautical chart out a path for your original lookout man (or whatever other unit) and not have to continuously click a new identify for it to travel to. Trebuchets will now pack and unpack automatically when you assign them to set on a certain edifice either in or out or range. And yous tin now queue up technologies and units at the same fourth dimension, allowing less downtime for production buildings while yous're busy managing other aspects of the game.

Your global queue of tech and units now includes icons in the top-left corner of the screen, just below the reworked toolbar. Forth with standard resource counts, the idle villager icon has been moved up elevation and shows how many idles you lot accept. Below each resource is likewise a value that indicates how many villagers are collecting at the given time. When you've hit Post-Majestic, and there are hundreds of units to manage, these small changes make a huge divergence. The user interface (UI) is besides scalable, so you can find something you're satisfied with depending on your monitor size. Resources now have a toggleable "wellness" bar that shows yous how much remains of a certain item, like a boar, tree, or gold tile. No more having to click an individual particular to encounter how much remains.

Source: Windows Cardinal

These changes make for a more user-friendly experience, but the biggest and best upgrades are the graphics and animations. Age of Empires Ii has never looked and then proficient, and the developers have kept the experience of the original game. Units and buildings haven't been changed so much that they aren't recognizable, and the artwork and animations are absolutely gorgeous. Ever since I played my showtime round of the original game, I wanted to come across castles and boondocks centers crumble into dust, and that's now a reality. Trebuchets swinging, troops riding into battle, battering rams hammering downward product buildings; it'south all here, and it all looks stunning. A zoom feature has been implemented, and then you tin can now pull dorsum to become a broader look at the map or dial right in to see your workers toiling. With the Hard disk drive graphics pack enabled, everything remains clear no matter how shut y'all get to the action. The manufacturing plant settings exercise take some tweaking to become looking perfect, and performance is going to be an issue, merely I'll get into that afterward.

To go along with the graphics overhaul, all sound has been remastered and reworked. The original soundtrack has been redone and sounds as epic equally ever, and unit and building sound effects are more than robust and more varied. With a quality gaming headset on, your ears are in for a treat.

Source: Windows Cardinal

There's an old joke with Age of Empires Two fans that the game taught more history than any grade in high school, and that's more valid than ever with three new campaigns. The collection is called "The Last Khans" and encompasses the 4 new civilizations added to the game, including Bulgarians, Cumans, Lithuanians, and Tatars. The new missions are expertly voice acted, and the older campaigns have also been reworked with new vocalization acting. Some of the HD expansion campaigns only had text, but voice interim has been added there equally well. Altogether, you're getting more than 200 hours of singleplayer gameplay before even breaking into skirmishes and multiplayer action. I played through well-nigh of all 3 branches of the new campaign, and if you enjoyed the older entries, you lot're sure to enjoy these. Additionally, there are about 150 achievements to attain.

One time the optional campaigns are completed, you tin can jump into singleplayer skirmishes against AI or into multiplayer against other humans. All the classic modes return — Random Map, King of the Hill, Regicide, Deathman, etc. — as well as a new mode called Empire Wars that starts you out in Feudal historic period with a number of production buildings and assigned villagers. It's a quicker way to get into the activeness and offers something new for returning players. On top of the usual means to play, there'due south a new feature chosen "The Art of State of war." It's a five-part department that teaches players how to become a good start on economy, how to nail, how to get to castle historic period as quickly equally possible (a pop strategy), and how to employ or defend against a rush.

Source: Windows Cardinal

New AI has been implemented, as well as a ton of new commands for allied AI players. For example, you tin tell allies to attack with certain troops, you tin can choose where to fortify with walls, and you lot tin can enquire them to focus on sure aspects of the game to improve complement your playstyle.

In previous games, high-level AI had to cheat to keep upwardly with human players. That has been removed, and AI at present instead operates more similar to how pro-level humans play. I watched enemy AI watch with sheep, push button in deer to the Town Center, and raid my economic system with small forces as I attacked its front door. Enemy troops took the high footing when attacked, and wouldn't throw units away at the foot of my castles. Able to put up a stiff fight against Hardest AI in the HD version of the game, the new Extreme AI utterly steamrolled me. I savour multiplayer simply certainly spend a lot of time centrolineal with and against AI opponents, then these changes make a huge difference and ultimately prepare players meliorate for multiplayer. HD and original CD AI are also available to play confronting.

On that note, multiplayer has also seen some changes. The old peer-to-peer servers are gone in favor of dedicated servers spread out across global regions. I played with an ally from the Britain and experienced no noticeable lag. That might change with an eight-thespian game from different regions, but overall there should exist far better stability in online games. In that location are at present leaderboards and ladders baked in, and a matchmaking feature makes it piece of cake to find an opponent in the same rating range. There'southward no limit to how many spectators tin can leap into a game to spotter, and they have new tools to get the best viewing experience possible. AoEII:DE is available on Steam and from the Microsoft Store, but both versions will exist able to cantankerous-play.

What I disliked about Historic period of Empires Ii: Definitive Edition

Source: Windows Central

I'm thoroughly enjoying my time with AoEII:DE, only there are certainly some noticeable bug. Foremost is the performance on my PC that includes an AMD Ryzen five 2600 processor (CPU), NVIDIA RTX 2060 graphics card (GPU), and 16GB of DDR4 RAM. I immediately changed graphics settings to my liking — disabled bloom, disabled animated fog, and cranked everything else up — and set resolution to 1440p. This gave the game more of an original feel that veterans will likely prefer.

I first played a number of matches without the Enhanced Graphics pack and saw framerates consistently around 120, dropping below threescore with a lot of activity on the screen. Without the pack enabled, the game still looks good, but you can't zoom in nearly as far, and sprites do wait pixellated at max allowable zoom. The game looks stunning with the Enhanced Graphics pack enabled, but after placing down some farms and massing some troops, the game dropped downwards to a consistent 30 frames-per-2nd (FPS) and regularly dropped below 15 FPS in activeness-packed sequences or popped upward to lx FPS in tranquility moments. My PC certainly isn't the near powerful out at that place, and I could turn down more than settings to boost framerates, but performance could certainly be meliorate. If you don't have a dedicated GPU, y'all're going to suffer even without the graphics pack enabled, and the Hard disk drive version of the game will likely make a lot more sense.

Performance aside, I saw some wonky stuff in terms of pathing and logic. For example, I sent a bunch of villagers to build multiple farms with a mill in the middle. After checking back later, I noticed that only the factory and ane subcontract was built and tended, while the other villagers had gone off to chase nearby game. I noticed some weird pathing as well when sending villagers to work outside of walls. I tasked a group to build a castle outside my base of operations, then deleted a section of the wall to allow them to walk directly to the castle'due south foundation. I retasked them on the castle with the wall deleted, but instead of noticing they at present had an easier trail, they kept heading for the nearest gate. I had to click the ground next to the castle to get the villagers to go through the deleted wall portion, and then click the castle foundation again to have them beginning work.

Historic period of Empires Ii: Definitive Edition looks beautiful, but you'll need a beefy PC to have full advantage.

The patrol command for troops, platonic for sending battalions into boxing, seemed, in some cases, to be off. For example, I patrolled a group of pikemen into an enemy base, and instead of taking out the cavalry in front of them, they set burn to a subcontract while their numbers were hacked down by the knights. This wasn't the case every time, and more often than not, units figured out what they should exercise to ensure a long life, only I did accept a laugh a couple of times equally I watched my units pass by the enemy to assail something completely non-threatening.

These bug, if not only me making errors on my cease, will hopefully exist addressed in the time to come. Microsoft has stated it will continue to work on AoEII:DE after release, with a focus on balancing and QoL changes. That's especially a good thing in terms of the new civilizations. The Definitive Edition has attempted to rest out some cardinal aspects of the game — including making the Barracks infantry line more than feasible with new technology — merely there's notwithstanding a mode to get. Some of the new units in the game are quite powerful, and we'll have to run across how the competitive community responds and how the developers react.

Finally, no doubt because of the cross-play characteristic between Microsoft and Steam, mods will be collected at the Age of Empires website instead of the Steam Workshop. That's no uncertainty a bit of a worry for some long-time players used to the Workshop, but thanks to the congenital-in modern manager inside AoEII:DE, there shouldn't be much consequence implementing the boosted content. I popular modern — the addition of gridlines on the playing field — is at present implemented in the game as a gameplay setting.

Should you purchase Historic period of Empires Two: Definitive Edition?

Source: Windows Primal

Considering AoEII:DE costs just $20 and includes all content e'er officially made (with more than 200 hours of campaign gameplay solitary), quondam fans of the game and newcomers to the RTS genre have a rather easy decision to make. Information technology's also already included for free for anyone with Xbox Game Pass for PC, opening information technology up to a ton of people at no extra charge in a higher place the subscription fee.

Aye, in that location are some issues with the game — especially when information technology comes to performance — so those lacking modern gaming hardware will probable need to exam things out to see if it tin can run at an acceptable framerate. And hopefully, the game will be further optimized in the future for those of us still struggling with what should be adequate hardware.

Even with the issues I mentioned at the top of mind, I can't look to jump back into Historic period of Empires 2: Definitive Edition and go on uncovering the smaller changes that I've yet to see. It's a true update to one of the greatest RTS games ever fabricated, and it's never been more enjoyable to play.

An RTS for the ages

Age of Empires 2: Definitive Edition

A lot of game for the asking price

Age of Empires Two: Definitive Edition manages to make the classic RTS feel new while not straying away from what made the game great in the offset place.

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Source: https://www.windowscentral.com/age-empires-ii-definitive-edition-review

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