I would say it is likely to be so, but we cannot be definitive. We do not have much information yet.
The only thing thatâs really missing is more frequent and efficient communication.
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What has been happening is that people have been sharing an opinion about this being something out of the ordinary. Every person, positive or negative in opinion, didnât expect them to release 2 DLC this year.
People are entitled to having a negative opinion of things.
The criticism of âhaving been presented in a disingenuous wayâ or that âa compromise was madeâ is based entirely in fiction.
They never promised that there would be DLC last year, and there wasnât. They never made the expectation that there would be DLC later this year as well, they only announced âDLC in 2025â. In some ways, I imagine this is why you made the connection that it was a single DLC split into two.
Iâm honestly getting sick and tired of negative opinions based off of a personal level of pessimism and entitlement. Itâs like some people get their feelings hurt by having higher expectations than people communicated, and then blame the developers instead of understanding that their expectations were unrealistic.
I genuinely hope this community grows past this kind of response. Itâs deeply personal and not informed by developer communication or what they deliver on.
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There are situations where you canât have all the information, and you can choose to believe the obvious, or whatâs being said to you. To me, the only debatable thing is the motivation. Maybe they wanted the game to have more frequent content. Unfortunately theyâre very bad at this. They should have announced the 2nd âDLCâ after the first one is released, to make it less obvious. But I think they were too afraid of the communityâs reaction to a DLC with 2 variants and 1 lousy game mode, after an almost 2 year wait.
Yes, actually Teutonic OrderâŠitâs probably just a campaign civ (since we already have the Order of the Dragon in multiplayer)âŠweâll see TSA but from the crusadersâ point of view:
Fighting in the Holy Land:
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The capture of Acre in the Third Crusade (1191) (Teutonic Order vs Ayyubids)
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The Siege of Damietta in the Fifth Crusade (1218) (Teutonic Order vs Ayyubids)
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The (Sixth) Crusade of Frederick II (1229) (Teutonic Order vs Ayyubids)
Expanding Christianity:
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The Battle on the Ice (1242) (Teutonic Order vs Novgorod - Rus variant)
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The Siege of Konisberg (1265) (Teutonic Order vs Rus)
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Battle of Pagastin (1271) (Teutonic Order vs Rus)
Clash of powers:
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Siege of Danzig (1308) (Teutonic Order vs Poland - Holy Roman Empire variant)
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The Battle of StrÄva (1348) (Teutonic Order vs Lithuania - Holy Roman Empire variant)
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The Battle of Rudau (1370) (Teutonic Order vs Lithuania - Holy Roman Empire variant)
After this is the Battle of Grunwald and the decline of the Teutonic OrderâŠ
Yes, I had thought of the roses of York and Lancaster aka Tudor Dynasty, but Genoa could also beâŠ
Yes, youâre rightâŠTSA has Forgotten Empires written all over it, itâs logical that they couldnât handle so much at once (AoE 3, AoM and AoE 4) and they simply discarded AoE 3 and focused heavily on AoM and AoE 4âŠI hope that when theyâre less busy they can go back to AoE 3âŠbut if they left the game to the luck of the modders it means that they wonât touch it anymore and itâs practically the death of the gameâŠ
Yes, I donât rule it out, but they would have to be very well-made variants (like Zhu Xi and Ayyubids) and at least the DLC would have 2 campaigns and like 15 new maps, then not many would complainâŠ
Yes, like AoE 3 in 2021 which was 4 dlcs (but in reality it was 2 loose federal civs and 2 civs in an African dlc)âŠ
Is it so hard for them to animate chickens? I donât even ask the devs to put treasure guardians or theyâll have a stroke lolâŠ
Yes, not to mention that last year there was no DLC so now they have to add two DLCs to improve the gameâŠ
Yes, in any case the commitment was with AoM for the premium editionâŠwith AoE 4 they can easily release one DLC per yearâŠ
Yes, especially for AoE 3 and thatâs why people were complaining that the new DLCs didnât bring new campaignsâŠ
I would like the 3DE for consoles too, even if itâs just for the gameâs 20th anniversary of the originalâŠ
Yes, I would prefer something more modern, but I like Antiquity much more than the Middle Ages⊠something that can compete with TW Rome 3âŠ
Yes, little by little, but itâs going⊠EA just needs to resurrect CnC with Petroglyph Games and Blizzard release SC3 (or even WC4)âŠ
Yes, it can happen to you like with the classic AoE 3, which was super powerful in graphics, but you needed a NASA PC to run it, but I donât think youâll have any problems with UE5âŠ
Yes, I played it and it was super goodâŠit would be a Tiberian Dawn remakeâŠ
Yes, unless the game mode is worked on and is not Arena of the Gods 2.0, otherwise they will also be harassed by AoE 4 players (and they already have enough with 3DE players who bombard them on the networks)âŠ
So they took their time for 1.5 years, but now theyâre positive theyâre gonna put out not one but 2 DLCs this year, when the first one isnât even out of the oven. So confident that theyâre already announcing whatâs in it while still crunching for the first one.
I remember Beastyqt saying this DLC was going to be big, bigger than Sultanâs Ascent. Was it this? 2 variants and a SP game mode?
Or are you thinking theyâre doubling down on the game? Now. When Microsoft is cancelling entries in the franchise. Maybe they suddenly realized how profitable this game is, who knows. Maybe the 8k concurrent players sold them on it.
Remember weâre talking about a studio so lazy that the game barely felt supported. Basic features got added with fanfare years after release, and some are still missing. Even if itâs impossible to prove this is what happened without them admitting to it, which would never happen, to me itâs much more likely that theyâve made their work easier by splitting the DLC, which also works for Microsoft since it allows them to set the price higher and worry less about content for the game throughout the year. The only thing that would make me think otherwise is if this DLC turns out to have 2 new civs and 4 variants like the last one. But they didnât seem to hint at that, on the contrary, they were talking about more âuniqueâ variants.
And consider the fact theyâve only announced the current DLC a few months ago. They seem to prefer working on the game for years with no communication about whatâs coming, instead of imposing deadlines on themselves. Even now, so close to release, we donât have a date for the current DLC. So what caused them to announce another DLC so prematurely. What does your spider sense tell you?
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In the past 1.5 years there was a whole situation with Relic.
But given how you feel about the studio (multiple teams work on this game, FYI) itâs not worth anyoneâs time going over this. You want to call the devs names, go ahead.
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Relic has now less than 100 developers. Itâs almost impossibile tha they Will work on AOE in the future.
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Wow, I didnât even know Relic developed Homerworld. How the mighty have fallenâŠ
Oh yes.
Relic was the best into RTS world. Them and creative Assembly. I donât know what happened.
It always takes time to get over a break up, even a corporate one!
Theyâll be back on their feet in no time. Thereâs a reason so many people enjoy their games, even if itâs small scale theyâll pick up interest again.
To break down how this happened, this video covers the subject pretty well:
Theyâre taking their sweet time releasing anything. They were adamant about releasing something early on this year, so canât see how people here are skeptic about the notion of them splitting up the DLC. It is clear that they just couldnât make the release for said promise and had to split up the content into multiple parts.
Iâll be surprised of the second half will even be released this year. Probably too close to the AoE3 fiasco for them to be announcing delays so early, but later this year? I can see them doing that.
The question is whatâll be included in each DLC. To some degree, Iâll be upset either way; if the first DLC is only variant, thatâll be awful and I wonât buy it out of principle. Then again, it is nice that I would be saving money for the actual content later on.
If instead the first DLC has one legitimate new civilization, itâll still be bitter considering the likelyhood of each DLC being regular priced. Not that money stings, Iâve definitely gotten my money worths from the game. It is instead the idea of marketing each DLC as completely new and totally worth it, when they arenât, and are each individually less than last yearâs for the same price.
The big surprise here would be if each DLC is in fact the same as last years. Letâs see you skeptics actually believe in the notion that they are capable of delivering that. Iâll gladly eat my words if they in fact are massive each. Iâll welcome that. But, considering they are too secretive to say anything at all this late into development, I have my doubts.
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Itâs not clear at all. Itâs a theory you have that youâre presenting as fact.
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Iâm only skeptical because we have 1 image, a short sentence or two, and 1 concept art. We have the DLC name as well.
There isnât enough info to understand what to expect. Itâs a wee bit early to say anything.
Take a trip down memory lane:
Itâs August 2023, the Gamescom trailer for Sultans Ascend just dropped and they added a steam storepage with several screenshots.
Even with that much info no one knew how many campaigns there would be. No one knew how many civs, at least not much else other than something âSultan-yâ and Japan. People didnât understand why HRE was so big and black and covered in gold.
For sanity sake I think itâs best to tuck it in until we get more information than a screenshot and a blurb. They extended the event to February 12, weâll probably get word in the next week or so.
Even then, what we think it will be like will have no comparison to launch day.
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Unrelated, but just curious, do you ever criticize the game? I donât think Iâve ever seen you criticize it. I have almost 1.5k hours since 2021 both vs AI and 1v1, but I also realize the game is far from perfect and if there was another big RTS (I got bored of SC2 years ago), that would probably be enough to make me question whether I would choose AoE4. Itâs a decently good game if youâre into competition, but nothing really stands out or impresses. It strikes me as a 9 to 5 game. Very little passion. A lot of the designs are non-committal, as in not really impactful or defining for a civ (or exciting), but just there for the sake of variety. Lots of cheesy designs as well for a historical setting, and thereâs a lot of jank for an AAA game.
Iâm asking the above because if you have some sort of emotional attachment to the game, that would obviously cloud your judgment and your intuition. But maybe you just donât bother with anything that hasnât been confirmed or admitted to. As in youâre a chess player that hates card games with a passion. To check this theory, I could ask you what is more probable between them announcing an additional DLC now, or them splitting a preexisting DLC into two? And what would you value the probability at?
What a annoys me is the prospect of them blatantly lying by making it âgreat newsâ. If instead they opted to be honest and just say âLook this DLC is very big. We know you want to get your hands on all this content asap, but we think itâs better for the game if this was released throughout the year so that there isnât such a big gap between releases. Additionally we will have a chance to further refine it, impact balance in a more gradual way, and add even more content, instead of rushing everything for release.â I think most people would have received that well and appreciate the honesty.
Instead we have this statement that is incredibly obvious, given how often theyâve released DLC, how slow theyâve been working on the game, how theyâve never announced anything until the last minute and always kept secrecy, the current context of AoE studios possibly downsizing with entries being cancelled, the amount of content thatâs been hinted to be in this DLC (â2 armiesâ, variants, SP game mode) and so forthâŠ
Anyway, it is what it is. Letâs see what they have for us.
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Who cares if I do or not? This is about as useful as asking a regular (constructive) critic if they ever praise the game.
Itâs like me asking everybody who opines on development strategy if theyve ever produced a video game or been close to video game production. We canât share our opinons?
Every human has an emotional attachment to things they like. âlikingâ something is an emotion. None of us are logic robots. Do you like the game (on the whole, considering any flaws it may have for you)?
Theyâve announced two already. Struggling to understand the hypothetical. The claim was that theyâd already split one into two (vs. designing two coherent independent releases). Youâre asking me to predict the chances of them doing that again?
Why is announcing two planned DLC packages not âgreat newsâ?
What evidence do you have for them âlyingâ? Do you know something the rest of us donât?
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I thought the same about those who said that the AOE-3 DLC would be cancelled. And look, they predicted it like Nostradamus.
Worldâs Edge does not deserve the faith of its consumers. You should doubt everything they claim.
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Sure. Nobody said you canât. That doesnât mean random claims made by a forum poster are fact, either. We should doubt everything everyone claims. Worldâs Edge because a promise isnât a delivery, and forum posters because short of breaking a signed NDA nobodyâs going to know anything.
Fair?
I think my English is throwing you off. Iâm asking what is more probable between the 2nd DLC being genuinely new and not yet developed vs them splitting the allegedly huge DLC they have already developed. Obviously we canât know for sure which one is true, so how would you evaluate the probability of it being a lie, given everything we know as well as past experiences?
You can continue being dismissive with everything I say if that makes you feel better. I was just curious to know if youâre considering this as a possibility and how likely that would be in your perspective.