The Answers to When there's a Beta and Why we've seen so little recently

Age of Empires IV IV - Discussion
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Hello Everyone. I’m super excited for Age of Empires 4. The past little while I’ve been putting tons of thought into why we had so little information and when we would see an Age 4 Beta Announcement. I grew tired of waiting and I put in some effort to figure out answers.

I’ve come to the conclusion we will have a beta on either September 28th or September 30th.
With an announcement of it likely coming around September 19th or 20th.

Where is this coming from? Well it comes from an analysis of Relic’s past. I will explain it all in this post, but if you’d prefer you can watch it in video form

Video In Here

Finding the Age of Empires 4 Beta Date - Through Looking Into the Past - YouTube

Relic has released many games in the past. Games such as:

Company of heroes 1 Released Tuesday September 12th 2006
Company of Heroes 2 Released Thursday June 25th 2013
Dawn of War 2 Released Feb 19th, 2009. a Thursday.
Dawn of War 3 Released April 27th, 2017 a Thursday
A pattern among their game releases is they tend to stick to Tuesday or Thursday. Even AoE 4 will be released on a Thursday, and the AoE 4 beta was released on a Thursday.

So let’s look at one of Relic’s closed betas. Company of Heroes 2.
Company of Heroes 2’s Closed Beta started Tuesday April 2nd, 2013.
The game Released June 25th 2013. The difference between these days was 84 days
So what about AoE4’s closed beta? We know that started August 5th 2021. The Release date we know is going to be October 28th 2021. What’s the difference between these days? 84 days

Interesting. Maybe there are patterns in Relic’s Releases if this is the case. We should look at some of the timeframes Relic has done open betas for their games in the past then. Well Company of Heroes 2 Started Open Beta May 30th, 2013 (ALSO THURSDAY). It was 26 days prior to the release of CoH2.

Another Example Dawn of War 2. Their “Early Access” Open beta started on Tuesday January 20th, 2009. The game released February 19th 2009. This was 30 days in advance of their release and also stuck to the pattern of tuesdays and thursdays.

So let’s look at this for a moment. If we subtract 26-30 days from AoE4’s known Release date of October 28th 2021 we get: September 28th to October 2nd. BUT October 2nd is a Saturday. Let’s round it to the nearest Thursday and we get September 28th or September 30th. For the Open Beta Start Date.

Ok but why is there no info coming out lately?
I’ve thought of this too. I’d say it’s because of the Red Bull AoE2 tournament coming up. It’s listed on Redbull’s website as the last WOLOL Tournament for 2021. AND As the “final iteration of Red Bull’s iconic 1v1 Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition tournament.”. They said last for 2021 not last ever. BUT they did say last for Age of empires 2. WHAT IF this means there will be more next year for AoE4? The tournament is also sponsored by Microsoft. Microsoft the same company funding Age of Empires. THE same people who have said AoE4 is their “Flagship” Game. I think all of this together means that this tournament will be used after it’s over / at the very end in some way to hype Age of empires 4. It would make sense why there’s been nothing lately because it will distract from hype for AoE4. Pro AoE2 Players / Content creators are heavily focused on this event. So after it’s over they will be able to have free time to help advertise for AoE4. It’s all starting to make sense why we’ve seen nothing so far. THEYVE BEEN SAVING IT FOR AFTER THIS!

Dawn of War 2’s Open beta was announced 12 days before it Started.
If we go back 12 days from my suggested Start date of September 28-30th it’s During the Red Bull WOLOL Tournament. They would probably hold off until it’s over but looking at all of this info it adds up.

We will be hearing About an Age of Empires 4 Beta OR Gameplay September 19th-20th.
WIth an Open beta Start date planned for September 28-30th. Giving their pro players and streamers time to go home after this event happy with microsoft’s $ and ready to hype up their next game.

What do you guys think? Is it insane or does it make as much sense to you as it makes to me?

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It is a secret…

Do not talk too much, or you could break up the hipe cumulation…

Its is like in the restaurant. The more you wait at the table, the more you will like the food, since the more you wait, the more you get hungry.

Let people cook them self a litle longuer.

Edit

There also the new aoe game that that will son get out on mobile. ( Return to empire).

Its is national lock to china.

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Wow sound interesting! Yup hope you are right about this! :+1:

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Certainly some interesting observations. Not sure if two of three game are enough data to be sure. I already played the closed beta and my mind is made up, but I see tons of comments of people demaning more information - and I can’t blame them, I was in the same situation before I got a chance to play the game (or just see extended gameplay)

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The trend doesn’t fit for Dawn of War 3 unfortunately, which had an open beta just a few days before release. We also need to take into account the publisher, which for DoW and CoH was SEGA afaik, while for AoE it’s Xbox Studios. So they might have a say in this as well, as it’s their investment, and World’s Edge creative director Adam Isgreen already hinted that there might not be an open beta. We also need to consider whether they are on schedule or not for this title.

Otherwise great analysis and video and hopefully you are right and we will get to play this game again before release.

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I did see this actually and I think if anything they will understand how poorly Dawn of War 3 did. As far as I could tell that game didn’t even have a closed beta for players and their open beta was very short. The game kind of flopped and even relic admitted it:a The statement says that “while Dawn of War III has a dedicated player base, it didn’t hit the targets we were expecting at launch, and it hasn’t performed the way we hoped since.” The studio go on to say that “when a game underperforms, plans need to change,”

Specifically they said plans need to change. Makes me think they know this was a mistake and won’t repeat it

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Very interesting read I think you’re onto something.

I’ve heard a lot of people on reddit theorising there will be an announcement at Wololo 5 as well.

I made a thread about it if that does happen.
Even from the trailer we can see The aoe IV style (the ghost frame on hiedelberg Castle)

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Wow, thanks for doing all the digging for this info! I hope you are right as it would make sense of the long AOE IV silence. I would love another beta!

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