Two empty "unknown app" DLCs at SteamDB: the next 2026 DLCs?

[7Ztan]

@Ekarlath

Any of you knows enought the past years scheduling / announcement logic of the devs for summer to start some guessing on a date for a DLC reveal announcement ? Do they tend to do release during july, august, or just after ? Is there any big game-con event during the summer where they reveal things what so ever ? Any track of microsoft key revealing moment would help figure out when we could expect some news. I’m really impatient to get at least few pixels to study and zoom in and try guessing shapes ! (yes I love doing that ahaha)

Last year, on July 30th we got news for every planned content for the second half of 2025, including the first tease of Chronicles.

Celebrating Age in 2025 and What’s Still to Come This Year! - Age of Empires...

[Ekarlath]

@7Ztan

Last year, on July 30th we got news for every planned content for the second half of 2025, including the first tease of Chronicles.

Nice, that was the thing I was looking for. The second half year announce period !

Sad it’s going to be at the end of the month… It’s far…

[smiki5five]

@WhiteMagick4

The Vikings already have many scenarios covering their actions in Northern and Western Europe, the Mediterranean and northern America.

Many would like a more standard campaign, with multiple scenarios telling the tale of one historical person or family.

[WhiteMagick4]

Great opportunities for that with the Viking activity in Eastern Europe, the Balkans and the Byzantine Empire.

[Ekarlath]

Many updates on the main apps since monday, no dlc app update since last week.

Soon™

---

VnV app update 3h after my previous statment.

[smiki5five]

Would be cool if the Viking DLC had a NorthAm civ like the Algonquians or Inuits. A campaign for such a civ can wait until there’s more NorthAm civs for a viable campaign, but they could feature as opponents in some scenarios.

(I know it can be done with scenario editor units like in V&V, but it’s boooring!)

[Ekarlath]

@smiki5five

Inuits

Actually this is a pretty cool idea to have on a Viking themed DLC.

But this would require a second architecture set, so it’s definitly not happenning. However they can eventually add some scenarios buildings / units related to that.

[smiki5five]

Ok, good point about architecture. So let’s just hope for more scenario editor native American units for now.

[WhiteMagick4]

I think they should instead do a Meso-North American DLC.

Iroquois, Lakota, Purepecha, Mixtecs and Zapotecs.

[KHANATTILA]

@SamePorpoise303

That said it’s ok to have a civ named after something that is not ethnical if it’s clear what it points to as in the case of Italians. Similar to Byzantines, it’s not a “real” identity but everyone knows what we mean when we say it and why they’re not Romans in the context of the game and that’s fine enough. The game is ethnocentric but it’s not always easy to draw the line, specially if you focus on premodern history.

Exactly, I completely agree with you. Was ‘Byzantines’ also a term that just popped up, I don’t know, a century or so after the fall of Constantinople? After all, they called themselves Romans.

@SamePorpoise303

I think Italian was more of a geographical expression when used in 900s/1000s though I guess it’s open to interpretation and you may know something I don’t, I’m not an expert on the topic. I doubt anyone would think of themselves as Italian (not necessarily relevant how someone would identify but it’s something) and there wasn’t really anything you could point as “Italian” at that point. Vulgar/late Latin disintegrated into local dialects and Italian was created on top of them so it was still artificial, there was nothing culturally Italian unifying Italians. In the north there was the hre, then feudal anarchy, then communes. In the middle there was the Pope starting to create a proper state. In the south there were Arabs, Byzantines and Normans (and Lombard leftovers actually to add confusion). Italy was broken apart unless you want to consider only Northern Italy as Italy but then it’s basically the same as Lombardy (lega nord lol) and even then they were called Lombards rather than Italians and later they were named after local communes.

To be honest, I’m no expert either. It’s just that, when you read around, there’s often reference to a shared cultural, linguistic and religious undercurrent, whilst the spirit of particularism amongst the cities is in full swing.
It’s just that we modern men, along with a few other elitists over the centuries, can refer to that undercurrent as the bare minimum needed to say, ‘Ah! Italians!’. And that works within the context of this game.

@SamePorpoise303

(lega nord lol)

Oh no, abbiamo nominato il gatto nero. Ora 7 anni di sventura / Oh no, we’ve mentioned the black cat. Now we’re in for 7 years of bad luck.

[Apocalypso4826]

@Ekarlath

Actually this is a pretty cool idea to have on a Viking themed DLC.

Yeah, it is. They would be an archer civ, and could probably have free Crossbowman and maybe Arbalester upgrades. The Inuit invented wooden crossbows, which is quite a notable invention considering their remoteness and primitive technology.

[Ekarlath]

@WhiteMagick4

they should instead do a Meso-North American DLC.

Economical wise, it’s not legit due to The Last Chieftain beeing a south american DLC.

Always avodiing redundancy when you do DLC releasing.

[WhiteMagick4]

I don’t think they overlap but that’s just my humble opinion.

[KHANATTILA]

@Ekarlath

Economical wise, it’s not legit due to The Last Chieftain beeing a south american DLC.

Always avodiing redundancy when you do DLC releasing.

@WhiteMagick4

I don’t think they overlap but that’s just my humble opinion.

I agree that it would sell far fewer copies than it could. I imagine they’ll want something that, in terms of gameplay, involves cavalry, siege weapons and that sort of thing.

[Ekarlath]

@WhiteMagick4

I don’t think they overlap but that’s just my humble opinion.

I don’t say they do. And it’s not “my opinion on how dlc should be done” of course, it’s more of an observation, from me. I got abit of knowledge of how to video game industry works, as I’m indie gamedev myself, and when I tryied to produce my own games I faced the threat of “not having enought appeal” that would have cost me all the time spent into the dev.

What I’m trying to point is that, genereally, DLC style content tend to avoid having similar thematics in a row. It’s like a chemical process in the body, if you drink too often of a specific drink with an extra flavour, with time you’ll not enjoy that flavour anymore. Avoiding repeating the same design pattern in DLC for video games exploit the same body / brain behavior, avoiding routine fatigue.

As an AoE2 fan, I would not have any problem by them doing some similar thematics content in a row, but they can’t consider my love for their game as a general behavior. Especially for a game with such a strong multiplayer-related income.

If they would have pick north america dlc just after a south america dlc, they’re also restricting their own designs possibilities. As the goal is to publish news civs with new identities, new play styles, uniqueness, unseen mechanics, new audio speech voicing, and solo campaigns, it’s important to not do content “too similar” one after the other.

Think of it as more than a game, but as a Tool. They do research about history, about langages for the voicing, architectures, wonders, battle, technologies, doctrinas, etc. By that they surely have to ask some countries autorisations to access some things, or some museum, hsitorians etc. A country will be easier to convince if there is no “kinda similar” thing in the recent release, so you can use their Ego as a way to get access to things. I’m not saying they do that, but as a reality of today world, flattery is a commercial strategy.

So it’s not about overlapping, it’s about Hyping. By bringing a content different enought, timeframe wise, history wise, world-area wise, gameplay wise, to the players, you’re … What’s the word for that … When you make sure a garden is kept nice… In fench it’s “entretenir”, as in “keeping healthy” but it applies to living and non-living things… So you’re keeping your audience hyped, using their brain chemistery by bringing diversitty.

As it’s a today world way of doing, then we can definitly dismiss another purely America related dlc as the Next one. Not dismissing it as a DLC candidate, just not THIS ONE next to be released.

But in the backend, they could yes have picked this topic to be worked on at the same moment they started to work on south america dlc. To spare money, as there is definitly more in commun to South Ameirca and North America than to any other part of the world that could be inserted into AoE2.

@KHANATTILA

I agree that it would sell far fewer copies than it could.

That’s it, even if the content would be amazing, due to the simply proximity with South America, the dlc could receive less love than it could have it the release was just schedulled on a better window.

[DynasticPlanet5]

I think we underestimate how much neuron activation access to “Eagle Warrior go brrrr” gives people even today

[MatM1996]

@Ekarlath

There is also the fact that Cpature Age team =/= Rome ad Bellum team. They both worked togehter, but are not the same team, from what i know.

Besides the spectator tool, CaptureAge teamed up with Romae ad Bellum mod authors to create Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition - Chronicles: Battle for Greece and its sequels.^[1][2]

Sumario

• 1Summary
• 2Trivia
• 3Gallery
• 4References

Summary

They have been involved on the CaptureAge tool and/or the in-game spectator for:

• Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition
• Age of Empires: Return of Rome
• Age of Empires IV
• Age of Mythology: Retold

Additionally, they have worked on the development of:

• Chronicles
  • Battle for Greece
  • Alexander the Great

They have also been involved in other components of the games, such as the Gauntlet mode and New Gods Pack: Demeter in Age of Mythology: Retold.^[3]

Trivia

• The level design of Chronicles: Battle for Greece was done by Sirak (Alexis Theriault) and Alkhalim (Lutz Hendrik Görs), as part of CaptureAge. In July 2025, they revealed that they were let go from the company.^{[4][5 ]}

@WhiteMagick4

What remains is their history in Eastern Europe, the Balkans and the Byzantine Empire.

Tecnically, the Hautevilles campaign and the Viking scenarios in VaV were that…

@zeppelino24

Besides, they could create a campaign where you start as a Viking in the early ages of the scenarios and eventually rise to become the Scandinavian kingdoms.

Yeah, although i think they first do that for AoE 4 since AoE 2 already have several Viking scenarios…

@SMUM15236

A full campaign featuring Harald Hardrada will still be fine imo.

Sure, Harold Hardrada (1030-1066)…the final of the Viking Age…

@Ekarlath

It’s an official dlc, so they count. And remember that Forgotten Empire were a team doing community content before making official content.

Sure, it official like The Forgotten in 2013 after the HD Edition was launched…

@Ekarlath

What do you guys think of Madagascar as a new civ ? Do they got rich enought medieval era history or is it a more recent timeframe matching ?

It would be interesting but as AoE 3 civilization (1540-1887)…

@Ekarlath

I also heard a lot about Barbary Corsair recently, but I think they’re more of a renaisance / age of discovery / age of sail timeframe.

Bucanners in the Caribbean could be matching the timeframe, but I doubt they would be added as a civ or a campaign focus, as they are more of a group of french pirates that did things rather than a Civilization per say. (however I’d love to play a Bucaneer campaign, yes because I love pirates ships !)

Zulu are also kind of more recent I think, but I’d love to have more african civs. I remember when they released African Kingdom, the architecture set, the campaign, I really enjoyed that design vibe they had for this DLC and I think africa can receive some more contents, there is a lot of story to be told.

Yeah, that’s all for AoE 3 timeframe stuff…indeed you have various types of pirates as mercenaries in that game (classic Caribbean Pirate, Barbary Corsair and since The Asian Dynasties, Wokou Pirates) (you have Pirates revolutions like Haiti and Barbary States) and the mod Age of Pirates with more Pirate stuff…and for the Zulu you have the Wars of Liberty mod for classic AoE 3 or Age of the World mod for 3DE…

@Ekarlath

There is also Korea / Japan that to me deserve some campaign love, why ? Cause they’re cool, no need more justification ahaha.
However I don’t see how that could fit into one DLC, as in, that’s two vanilla civs, having two non-new civs having each a campaign in a dlc is a very risky economic choice, and would probably need some kind of reworking of them what so ever. Then if you split them into two different dlc, that means you have to space them, release wise, to avoid overflooding the content with the same topic. That’s also a reality of game industry, variety is needed to avoid the player getting bored.

Maybe putting campaigns for Jurchens and Khitans too or only Chinese, Korean and Japanese campaigns…

@Ekarlath

There is also the knights of st john that could be an interesting candidate as a Civ, they got a rich history, a very unique warfare evolution over the time. Starting as crusader, tied to the hospitaliers, and ending with gunpowder while still being kind of knights. However I don’t know what name they should have, Hospitaliers are not legit as a civ name, knights of st john too is not a good civ name, and idk if Malta was their starting point so Maltese could aso not be adapted.
They however fall under the same problem as Venice, big enought for a campaign, but many not legit enought to be added as a Civ.

Yeah, that’s fits better for AoE 3 as Maltese or as Hospitaller variant in AoE 4…

@Ekarlath

There are also some groups of people we don’t really have as civs ingame from the West-Balkans, Croatia is the one that comes to my mind first. But I don’t know the Balkan history to say if any of those area could be candidate for civ to be added to the game.

Of course Switzerland and Austria are candidate to me, as well as Savoy, Ireland, and maybe also Flemish, but they don’t all catch the “civ” tag, more of kingdoms for most of them.

Yeah, for Balkans you have Croatians for Tomislav, Serbians for Stephan Dusan the Mighty, Vlacs for Dracula of course and maybe Albanians for Skanderbeg and his fight against Ottomans and Venetians…and sure, for an Alpine dlc, you have Austrians, Swiss and maybe Bavarians too…

@WhiteMagick4

Iroquois, Lakota, Purepecha, Mixtecs and Zapotecs.

It should be two separate dlcs and Lakota are from 17th century onwards…the Mississippians fits better for that, since they are the predecessors of Lakota and Cree civs…

@Ekarlath

That’s it, even if the content would be amazing, due to the simply proximity with South America, the dlc could receive less love than it could have it the release was just schedulled on a better window.

Yeah, maybe for next year…

[SamePorpoise303]

Still waiting for when it will be revealed that @MatM1996 is actually a chatbot

[Ekarlath]

@MatM1996

Yeah, that’s fits better for AoE 3 as Maltese or as Hospitaller variant in AoE 4…

Nah, they are in AoE3, but they definitly fits AoE2 timestamp.

The only question is, were they a Civilization, or just a group of crusader.

Hospitalier could be interesting to be the base for a civilization, I mean the hospital is one building we don’t have. You could also add the banks to them, as the first real banks were introduced for the crusades. It would be a replacement for the market, or a unique buildin like the caravanserai that would do idk what.
The hospital could be a replacement for the church, or for the university I don’t know enought the hospitalier lore / malta / st john lore but there is definitly things to be used for an interesting civ gaeplay.

[CanineCrown7153]

@Ekarlath

st john lore

Didn’t one of them ally with an Ottoman and a pirate to find the fountain of youth?