Since Age of Empires 4 was announced in 2017, it seems fair to say that news about the game’s progress has been sporadic. It is possible that this will start to change in 2021, however, after a promising end-of-year update from World Edge studio chief Shannon Loftis on the game’s progress.
In a blog post on the official Age of Empires website, Loftis revealed that the Relic development team is making “great progress” in the game, adding that “we are literally playing this game every day – both in Washington and in Vancouver. “
Loftis went on to explain that “the development of RTS is funny: it takes a while to build the separate systems (AI, economy, yes, rendering, etc.) and then it takes a while for them to come together”. Now what things Tue get together to make a fully playable game, which Loftis says “looks like an Age of Empires game”, there is still “debugging and balancing and polishing” to be done before anything can be released.
Before that glimmer of hope, the last thing we really saw in Age of Empires 4 was in November 2019, when Microsoft revealed a gameplay trailer as part of XO19, which you can watch below.
Stay in line
In the blog post, Loftis also mentioned the move to work from home that was necessary due to the pandemic, which caused problems for studios worldwide. It seems, however, that the Age of Empires 4 team has managed to stay on track.
According to Loftis, the Age of Empires team “modified (by trial and error) our processes to help facilitate productivity and keep the game on track. So much passion, great developers, artists, designers, narrators, audio experts and the community – not to mention the backbone functions that keep the company running. “
Although we don’t have a launch window for Age of Empires 4 yet, it’s nice to know that the game is going well. We can only hope that 2021 will bring more frequent updates and perhaps the release date that we all hope for.
If you want more Age of Empires experiences, it’s worth remembering that Age of Empires 3: Definitive Edition was released in 2020, while a new DLC for Age of Empires 2: Definitive Edition is coming to Xbox Game Pass for PC, Microsoft Store and Steam later this month.