Age of Empires II And IV Are Coming To Xbox

To celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Age of Empires series, Microsoft revealed that Age of Empire II: Definitive Edition and Age of Empires IV will be coming to Xbox consoles. These real-time strategy games will be available through Game Pass for Xbox Series X|S and Xbox One, and will also release on Xbox Cloud Gaming.

Strategy games can be very challenging to get it right on consoles, due to their design favoring mouse and keyboard layouts. While some RTS games–see Frostpunk for example–can work with a controller, doing so needs a lot of extra work by a developer to get just right. For the Xbox ports of Age of Empires II and IV, developer World’s Edge says both controller and standard mouse and keyboard arrangements will be made available on consoles.

“We knew that bringing the complexity of RTS to Xbox consoles was a massive task and one we had to approach carefully and thoughtfully,” the studio said on Xbox Wire. “The team has been working hard to bring an experience that not only feels great using a controller, but also teaches players how to play on Xbox. A new tutorial designed specifically for controller input paired with a new user experience for console will help players get started. We’ve also added a new game AI which helps make resource management in a strategy game efficient and intuitive.”

Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition will be released on January 31, 2023, and will come with 83 maps, 42 multiplayer civilizations, 34 single-player campaigns, 10 multiplayer modes, and 7 co-op campaigns. Age of Empires IV will release later in 2023 and come with it numerous updates that have systematically release since it launched last year on PC.