Likely not for past replays, but maybe for future replays made.
The patch announcement thread says past replays won’t be usable:
I really hope AoE4 doesn’t suffer the same fate as AoE2 with saves and replays, where patches render them completely inaccessible or non-functional (useless) the vast majority of the time. Why is almost every non-AoE game I’ve played able to let them be functional after patch updates?
I somewhat understand for AoE2, based on what people say it’s about how units get different HP, attack, etc., through balance changes and all that info is embedded in saves/replays, and the game and all its commands just play out start to finish (in replays), iirc?
But for AoE4, surely they can record units, unit positions, and unit stats (along with building data) for the actual game played, so that no matter what patches come out, those recordings are not messed up, right?