For $60…?
Not a chance this gonna happen.
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Prize tag is way too prohibitive and from what I could see from feedback in the Steam forums, it will probably be as popular as AOE3 at best. No way it’s going to beat AOE2 which looks better, has more content for both skirmish and campaigns and is very cheap in comparison.
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This game was released in 2006, unless you are talking about the failed kickstarter project.
Which is a glorified mod that has managed to fool like 30 people.
Also the original game did so badly on steam it was removed from the store. And yet people keep bringing it up as a “good” example of what they want.
It looks pretty similar in quality to aoe 3 which was released around the same time.
They don’t look similar. And its very clear which of the 3 are older. Or was your argument that they all look the same?
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It is true that the game has a somewhat high price and they could make a small reduction, but I understand that it is a triple A, it is a NEW GAME and I also understand that it is at the price of other new games.
The game has not come out and, therefore, it is better to do the evaluations of the game when it is the day or in an open beta, in Steam they can say what they want about its possible fame, which I do not care.
That it will surpass AoE2 I have no doubt and that the game looks worse you will say, many disagree.
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Where are you from? $ 60 is a triple AAA new game price in several countries, I have not asked for a lot of discount either, but regional prices could apply a little better.
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Really?
I guess it is like the “Sweet Dreams” song says “Some of them want to be abused” 
I love in Poland, we are in EU but don’t have Euro currency and still rather weak, post-commie economy, and in last 10-15 years prices for AAA games went from (after conversion)
~25$ (USD) → ~33$ → ~38$ → ~52$…
When I look at upcoming Battlefield 2042 it’s 269,90zł so 69$! Just a base game for Christ’s sake…
Age of Empires IV is 214,99zł ~55$. Very much AAA for a basic, normal game. Minus that preorder expansion for II:DE do around 50 at the end.
Still- we don’t have US economy to pay 50-60$ 
And for most people, especially in abundant PC market, buying day one for full price is rather rare. More common on consoles where they can resell that game a weak after.
Especially hard sell when MS is pushing Game Pass. That’s why in the end it might sucks for non-1st party Devs.
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The first game of those Series did come out 2007 by World Forge
It was team of 50 people, they did make RTS 4 games.
The team behind new game KINGS AND SOLDIERS: Ancient Warfare does try to make up-to-date version. So far indeed AoE3 : Definitive Edition and updated version of Ancient Warfare look quite comparable to AoE4.
Ancient Warfare has even all that stuff people asked for like crews in siege engines, readable graphics, historical setting, experience by units, customize units gear, while having deep and complex base build, with extra E-Sports qualities, still that game got merely 30 people to support it.
So why should AoE4 be a bestseller?
‘Age of Empires’ is like the ‘Call of Duty’ name for FPS genre *
*StarCraft player might disagree, but sorry that’s the harsh reality! 
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All AoE games have become bestsellers as they are distinctively different from each other, yet they all give you that typical AoE feeling of playing against a mountain and then crushing it and sometimes getting buried under it. And what also seems very common and which all versions share, they could always be made even better.
Just having a famous name doesn’t pull the entire wagon, so far we have seen by all former big RTS names, from C&C, Stronghold, Empire Earth to Dawn of War, to very badly perform by their last games.
Most AoE games have become bestsellers, because they did represent what people wanted.
AoE Online was a very clear exception, as it failed.
KINGS AND SOLDIERS: Ancient Warfare clearly didn’t, and they did make already 4 games prior.
Stronghold: Warlords and Conan Unconquered didn’t, Firefly and Petroglyph are very experienced developers. It has been quite a while and a very rare site to see a successful RTS.
Therefore, I think the question is very legitimate, if AoE4 does represent what people of 2021 want.
There are by AoE4 quite a lot of questionable choices and apparently they won’t be approached-
It’s all about definition and proportions. On PC game sales have a long tail (that’s the phrase?) so eventually you get really decent numbers.
Most of the time publishers are focused solely on that initial launch widow to judge these things, which isn’t very good for the game, developers, community or the industry outside of CEOs and ‘investors’.
Also RTS games are in a different position than in '99 or '05*, and market is so full you can’t go without a day without 500 releases on Steam, including at least some interesting and worthy titles. In short- huge fragmentation and diversity and there’s only so many players and hours in one day.
Judging by the beta- IV shouldn’t have problems to appear not only in ‘trending’ but also ‘top#10 bestsellers’ on Steam. For how long?
God can only say. Let’s hope for at least a fraction of Valheim haha.
Personally I’m as blown away by ANNO 1800 as of because games like that
- yes I’m suggesting classic RTS games are more niche thing than couple of decades ago
I wish AoE III was still as popular as CoD Mobile or WoW but such are things…
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Yes, RTS are in a very different position today, because the industry majority of CEOs and ‘investors’ did loose their touché. Because we can’t have the games the way we like it.
We can’t have something like Supreme commander, with nice zoom options, gameplay depth and lots of unit types. We can’t have something like Spell force 3 in Up-to-date Graphics, lots of resources, with very good AI.
Judging by AoE4 design concept, it just doesn’t sound like it can break the cycle,
as it is merely designed from the short sited perspective of competitive pvp.
I’ve mentioned changes in player preferences and trends, but most of the proper RTS market was additionally pushed outside both by publishers and because of creation of a completely new, indie, environment.
Like 90% (things like AoE3:DE, Tropico 5 or ANNO1800 are really few and far between) RTS games I play are made by ii - iii-sized indie teams. And now they have taken over most of this gaming environment.
It’s a result of many things, but I can’t say older times were much better. They ALL had to deal with publishers and even worse- physical media realities.
Who would dream of 10-15$, good games back in the day?
I’d be 100% happy if sequels to things like Ancient Wars: Sparta or Rise & Fall: Civilizaitons at War were made by good indie teams.
Early access seems to work as a decent replacement of greenlighting/crowdfunding.
The biggest factor is the price. Terraria, Garry’s Mod, Valheim would never sell as they did with 45-60$ pricetag.
I am totally hyped about the game.
The game looks amazing and the devs seem to have put an enormous amount of effort into this game and I really hope it goes well.
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There are some ‘out-of-their-mind’ people that were giving beta like 3/10, but for the most part without going into NDA stuff, players are pleased. For sure it won’t ‘flop’.
I’m interested what are the expectations sales-wise on the Microsoft side. Support for AoE was great since AoE 1:DE and I hope they play for the long game and just expect this game to gather momentum.
Hell, look at ‘terrible’ Ubisoft- even they stick to things like ‘For Honor’ or ‘R6:S’ and it payed off. It’s impossible to make RTS games super mainstream without some major publishers pushing it.
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Considering people play mostly the older games, or games that are retro-designed,
I doubt the player preferences changed.
It’s just these day’s most teams don’t understand how fundamentally
flawed is their concept of RTS game.
Pick games like DoW3, Act of Aggression, Forged Battalion, Year of Rain, Halo Wars 2 its clearly from different teams, but they all are designed in the same lame Warcraft 3 way.
-no proper zoom or free camera
-AI is made extra boring and rudimentary to force people to play online
-the gameplay is made extra accessible boring, by dumbing it down
-just rush to some locations, while it does build up itself very slowly, while take care of very few things
Or maybe Microsoft again just doesn’t have the right touché?
There are 400k 1v1 player account on SC2 et 45k on aoe2DE
(I can really recommend Age of Empires 2 DE if you like RTS - #8 by Ðióġeŋex-2112 - General Discussion - SC2 Forums)
There are basicly the double of spec on SC2 than AOE2DE on twitch and *3 in term of followers.
There are pretty much no doublt, sc2 have a way more player than aoe2DE even if the game is 11 years old (but maybe because the game is free if i am not wrong).
If you look at the amount of viewers on top videos, you get 130k on sc2 top vid vs 48k on aoe2DE.
So it’s clear than aoe2de don’t have surpassed sc2 at all, not even close
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yes,the decks of cards gave a certain personality to the civs you carried,made them really unique and yours…no game was played the same,since the chances of finding a deck equal to yours was tiny, which gave a re-playability to the game more than infinite and on the creation in batch made the games faster and that you did not have to focus so much on the economic issue (the typical booming before starting the fight against your opponents)…
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Ofc there is always a chance for failing. But I think many of the recent fiascos in the gaming world (Warcraft 3 Reforged, Cyberpunk release) has made game publishers a lot more cautious about releasing sub-par quality software. I do think that a company like MS would take note of the recent events and make sure that the necessary amount of QA is there. I think the end product will be polished and high quality