Xbox’s marketing has all but confirmed that Age of Empires IV is coming to Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S, with an announcement coming later today.
Published last October 28, 2021, Age of Empires IV has been the first real sequel in the franchise since 2005. While the past sixteen years had seen multiple DLC and special rereleases of Age of Empires II and Age of Empires III, Age of Empires IV is significant precisely for updating the franchise to modern gaming standards.
Up to this point, Age of Empires IV has been playable on Steam and Xbox’s PC Game Pass. Controller support was already available on the game, to make it playable on PC Game Pass, so a console port was an obvious option, and fans were rightly wondering why Microsoft hadn’t made it available yet.
Xbox head of marketing Aaron Greenberg sent out a reminded about the Age of Empires 25th Anniversary Broadcast, coming later today, October 25, 2022. For those curious, the first Age of Empires actually got published on Windows in North America first on October 15, 1997. Still, it’s pretty much tradition for Age of Empires to release games and expansions on October, so hitting the ballpark is good enough.
Greenberg’s statement, and the subsequent marketing for the Anniversary event, explicitly tells both console and PC players to watch the stream for upcoming news.
This was supported by an insider statement that Age of Empires 4 would be coming to Xbox. On top of that, another insider, Klobrille, shared Xbox’s marketing after replying to a fan asking about a console port that “You’ll see tomorrow.”
This also joins the other rumors and innuendo that Age of Empires 2 is also getting a port coming to Xbox consoles. In this case, there’s more evidence that a new special edition of the most popular game in the franchise is coming specifically to Xbox Series S and Xbox Series X.
In reviews, Age of Empires 4 received a lot of criticism for not taking too many risks, something that looks unfavorable for it compared to competitors like the now widely celebrated Total War franchise, developed by Creative Assembly now under Sega. Arguably, however, this does put this possible port in an interesting position. The 1997 paradigm of game design that Age of Empires still brings to the table, is coming properly to modern consoles. That’s something that definitely can’t be said for the many ongoing remasters, remakes, and reboots of other games, like the Resident Evil series, and the newly announced Silent Hill games and projects.
Are you a console player unsure if you would even want to play a 1997 era PC strategy game in 2022? Check out our Before You Buy video below so you can decide for yourself.
Source: Game News 24
