Age of Empires II: HD expansion has announced a release date and 4 brand new civilizations!
Microsoft’s Age of Empires II is a real-time strategy classic. Now in this day and age of video game experiences, this might shock some of us. But it’s true. Despite similar titles like Sid Meier’s Civilization series giving it a run for its money, Age of Empires II has a large dedicated fanbase. So much so that back in April 2016, when ex-head of Microsoft, Bill Gates did an AMA on Reddit the top gold-winning comment was “Mr. Gates can we please have another Age of Empires…”.
Surprisingly Gates responded, asking how many civilizations would the fans of Reddit need. More noteworthy than that is the remastered Steam exclusive Age of Empires II: HD has announced the upcoming release of its third expansion DLC.
A whole 17 years after its initial release, the third DLC is called “Rise of the Raja” and is set to release December 19th. According to the Steam announcement, the expansion is set in Southeast Asia and will feature four new civilizations: the Burmese, Khmer, Malay, and Vietnamese. All four will have their own fully voice-acted campaigns, new maps, and new units. Guys, Battle Elephants!
In addition, the Age of Empires II: HD team also promises more performance and balance fixes for the overall game. A recent post says that the team has been working with an open beta for months! As a result, they have now decreased the number of desyncs by 90%. This is good news for fans, multiplayer matches are going to be more stable and multiplayer restore has been added. So if you do lose a match’s progress to a desync, you can pick back up from where you left off.
So maybe there is room in players’ hearts for both Age of Empires and Civilization VI. Just a reminder the DLC is slated for release on December 19th via Steam. Therefore it requires the original game Age of Empires II: HD in order to play. Battle Elephants for everyone!