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

[MatM1996]

@Ekarlath

I bet on early august AoE2 dlc reveal.

@attilakan123

It is not technically impossible, but if they continue following their usual release pattern, the next AoE2 DLC is more likely to come either at the end of August or in October.

Yes, it could be at the end of August with Gamescom (August 22nd) to launch in mid-October…

@attilakan123

September now seems very unlikely for an AoE2 DLC. The Baltic Powers for AoE3 is already scheduled for September 10, and as far as I know, two paid DLCs from different Age of Empires games have never been released in the same calendar month.

Uh…wrong, that’s false…in August 2021 they released The African Royals for AoE 3 (August 2nd) and a week later, Dawn of the Dukes for AoE 2 (August 10th), so releasing two DLCs in September wouldn’t be unusual…if it’s Baltic DLC for AoE 3 now, then African DLC for AoE 2 should follow…

@Lesrot

I can’t believe another age3 dlc is on its way wow. And they added independence mode where you can play without the cards, home cities and XP so it’s just an age game in the exploration era

Yes, now AoE 2 players who were bothered by the homecities issue since 2005 no longer have an excuse not to try and play the game… I had once thought of a similar mode for the Mediterranean DLC, but I was going to call it “Continental Blockade” (after the Napoleonic Continental Blockade) where players wouldn’t be able to use their homecities until the Imperial Age. But this mode would be the same, but post-revolution and from the Exploration Age, as if it were a lost colony like Roanoke xd…

@UnAutreVoyage

It seems there will be the next Chronicles DLC in October, and that the next medieval DLC will be for 2027.

Something like that…

@xPizzaSamuraixD

So agro activities are the min requirement now? I thought it was age of empires 2, not age of empires 1 development level civs. How about moving them to aoe1 and aoe3 respectively.

Yes, that’s what happens when you stretch a game too far, but in the devs’ defense, we already had the Mongols in Age of Kings, who didn’t exactly build farms and were just sheep herders…

@Velk413

Yeah, I will say this development of a new AoE 3 DLC makes me think that there probably will only be 1 more AOE 2 DLC this year as opposed to the 2 I was kinda hoping for, unless they suprise us and release and AoE 2 Scandi DLC along with this since they are thematically similar, but I hiiiiiighly doubt that.

Yes, this AoE 3 Baltic DLC isn’t exactly “brand new,” but rather the one they canceled a year and a half ago and, because of the development of the AoMR DLCs, they were only recently able to resume and finish it… besides, AoE4 will have the Scandinavian DLC (Vikings and Scots) at the end of the year, so I don’t think they want to oversaturate the saga with Norse DLC this year with a similar dlc for AoE 2…

@Velk413

Also makes me think another AOM dlc for this year is also probably highly unlikely

Who knows? They’ll probably develop the Incas for AoMR, but maybe they’ll leave it for spring of next year…

@KHANATTILA

Given the success of Nolan’s Odyssey in cinemas, why not adapt the Aeneid instead, as the mythological origin story of Rome? As a middle ground between Chapter 2 and Chapter 3

It’s not a bad idea, although I’d leave it more for an AoMR DLC…

@Tyranno13

Dear god no! We already had mythical nonsense due to pop culture with 3K. Not again.

Exactly, that’s another good reason…

@attilakan123

I think the next Chronicles DLC could begin in 280 BC with the start of the Pyrrhic War. It would be a natural bridge between Alexander the Great and the rise of Rome, because Pyrrhus still belonged to the Hellenistic world while his campaign in Italy introduced a direct conflict with the Roman Republic. From there, the story could continue through Rome’s conquest of Italy, the Punic Wars and the later expansion of the Republic.

That’s true…the thing is, they already covered Pyrrhus’ campaign in Return of Rome, so I’d see a Diadochi DLC instead, starting right after Alexander dies in 323 BC and ending with Lysimachus’ death at Corupedium in 281 BC…and then see if that DLC includes the Pyrrhic Wars as part of a third campaign or if they skip directly to the Punic Wars in the next DLC (264-202 BC)…

@ÖmerBey

I expect we will see Romans, Carthagaens and Gauls as new civs. I would want to see a seperate Epirotes civ and some Pyrrus scenario but they probably will make Epirotes a scenario only civs that is mix of Greek civs.

Yes, the rise of the Roman Republic as we see it in AoEO…

@DynasticPlanet5

Also the east was full of civs. The Viet and different Chinese dynasties and the Gojoseon of Korea and the Xiongnu to be proto Huns/Mongols and fill the steppes. And that’s just the surface

Yes, those are campaigns and topics that Return of Rome didn’t touch on (EE2 has a Korean campaign in Antiquity, but it’s anecdotal) and Lac Viet could cover the rebellion of the Trung sisters (as an ancient remake of Le Loi’s campaign)…

@Ekarlath

If you’re thinking about Chronicles, that may be someday the aim yes. As well as Egypt vs Hittites, with the infamous Sea People raids, and many other ancient civs that are cool to learn about.

@bigbossbro08

Still want Chronicles: The First Empre with the focus on Neo-Assyrian Empire. Where everyone around the region literally teamed up against them due to how brutal they were. Also literally led to the birth of Archaemanid Empire. Technically Neo-Assyrian is the one historically which were first Empire in a sense.

@Ekarlath

Assyria, Summeria, Akkadia, Hittites, Egypt, Minoan, Micenian, Trojan, Sea People(so many civs for them), hindu-kush empires, meso-american old empires. Europe barbarian invasions. And many other topic I forgot.

Yes, Return of Rome has several campaigns that touch on that, but they aren’t official (including the Filthydelphia campaigns)…

[attilakan123]

That is a fair point, but the ending of Alexander’s campaign seems to hint at Rome rather than another Diadochi expansion. The narrator contrasts Alexander’s empire, which rose and collapsed quickly, with another power that was growing slowly and would endure for centuries. That description fits the Roman Republic much better than the successor kingdoms.

The Diadochi could still appear in a campaign or as background to the transition, but I think the final narration strongly suggests that the next major chapter will focus on Rome.

[Ekarlath]

@MatM1996

in August 2021 they released The African Royals for AoE 3 (August 2nd) and a week later, Dawn of the Dukes for AoE 2 (August 10th),

Yes but now they use a differentm arketing strategy.

They never overlap their own release to be able to keep the hype on one producte, and also all the bugfix.

Also according to the X page profile picutre and banner change to the AoE3 dlc, it’s pretty straight forward to say no AoE2 content until september, and maybe ever later.

[WindwardHail620]

@MatM1996

in August 2021 they released The African Royals for AoE 3 (August 2nd) and a week later, Dawn of the Dukes for AoE 2 (August 10th), so releasing two DLCs in September wouldn’t be unusual…if it’s Baltic DLC for AoE 3 now, then African DLC for AoE 2 should follow…

You don’t have to go that far back, this year they released the Gods Pack Demeter on February 10 and a week later on 17 February The Last Chieftains.

[Ekarlath]

@attilakan123

but the ending of Alexander’s campaign seems to hint at Rome rather than another Diadochi expansion.

100%

The french last sentence is saying “The next time, I will tell you of an empire that took its time, and was meant to last”. So it’s neither Pyrrus, nor the Diadochi.

However remember something, Chronicle is a setup where they can do standalone history. Yes currently BfG hinted Alexander, and Alexander hinted Rome. That only mean one thing: They started with a dev plan from the start that was meant to cover greece epic, alexander, and rome. I think they can do up to 3 interesting dlc in a row feature rome, without creating a content fatigue for “once more the same roman topic” with the unification & punic war / civil wars & caesar / empire & barbarian invasion. After that, they can pick a different narrator phrasing style and start fresh with anything, even some AoE3 ish style content.

The obvious reason why they choose to release the current chronicles in kind of a continous style is not due to historic timeframe, it’s more about the way the narrator is telling the story. Age of Empires 2 classics dlcs are always one narrator telling the story of one character, or one people, either talking to someone, either writing it as a poem, or some other style of storytelling. AoE4 campaign style are more documentary style, which kinda did not catch my eye that much, even that I’m a big fan of documentary but the vibe is not the same. AoE3 approach was a fantasy story based on historical moment and myths related to them. While Chronicle is more of an history lesson, abit like the old wise woman of the citadel teaching stories of long gone empires and rules, so it’s escalating from the greeks vs persian toward the roman empire.

This imply that once the “Empire builder” / “empire shaker” narative is over, the narrator can teach to another student about another topic. Of course they’re doing the narative based on what they work on, and not the opposite, but my point here is that it’s not relevant to fix on the timeframe nor the continuity of the content. For now they are in a chain-release, and of course roman are the obvious next to do. So it doesn’t matter if they go for one or more dlc with rome in a row, once they did the rome topic, they can do some spin offs. And some may requiere a spin-off before.

For example the moment where Caesar or Mark Antony were in egypt. Currently we have no egyptian style set, and I don’t think using the achamenid set would be legit for Alexandria in Egypt. So either they sacrifice the immersiveness of the architecture, either they put that part into a cutscene, or third option they need an egyptian set to be released in a spin off before the Caesar story. Why in a spin off ? Because egypt did not really do anything else than conspiracy and riots during that part of roman history. If you add an egyptian architecture, then you definitly needs to talk about the rich warfare story of egypt, which of course include the Hittites and the Sea Peoples raids.

The roman did not fight against the egyptian during the Caesar period, so there is no point in really adding them like they did for the Thracian where it was still legit to fight them, and to play one single scenario with them. They can add some scenario units yes, but my main concern about the egypt moment is that architecture design. It’s kinda also valid for the next viking dlc, if they add an architecture set, it’s because there is at least one new civ using it to be played in the payed content.

[Velk413]

@MatM1996

they already covered Pyrrhus’ campaign in Return of Rome

“We already have Pyrrhus campaign at home” lol

[Siegelad4112]

With all the Chronicles stuff being added, a few scenarios playing Pyrrhus with some of the Diadochi war would be great to bridge the huge gap with the Romans since the RoR’ Pyrrhus campaign looks bland compared to Chronicles’ choices in every scenario…Even enemies of Rome would be the perfect addition, where you get to play as their enemies almost like the ones in Alexander.

[Ekarlath]

@Siegelad4112

a few scenarios playing Pyrrhus with some of the Diadochi war would be great to bridge the huge gap with the Romans

I agree that having the early part of the “roman dlcs” not centering entirely on the Romans would be a cool choice. First to avoid the over-content on the ROMAN, but also because there is a lot of story to tell, related to rome without beeing rome.

Pyrrhus invasion of Italy is a very crutial moment for Rome history, first time they encountered war elephants, and the things they invented to counter them were very interesting.

I’m not documented enought about the Diadochi war to say what would be interesting to put in a rome themed dlc, but of course lots of fight there and there, but they were more of minors factions of a big empire that colapsed rather than entire civilization.

---

Just thought about the Romans for Chronicle, they could easily add 3 roman civ without any overlap. One for the Republic, one for the Empire, and a third beeing “the roman legion” as the life of the roman army was pretty different from the roman cities.

That would be pretty interesting to have a civ designes arround the concept of army camp instead of city, with mule-cart equivalent, wooden building for feudal age, stone building for castle age.
The roman legion is the perfect candidate for that, with soldier beeing also gatherer and builder, focusing on foraging rather than farming.

The only issue I see with an army camp civ is the long-term food supply logic. If you remove the farms from them, you could have the pastures yes but roman army were not that much of shepperds, they were more hunters. So on late-game, if you remove the mill and farm mechanics, it would requiere another way to provide food (outside of fishing ships) to have the civ viable ingame.

What I know form the roman army camp system was that they were more about gathering local taxes, purchasing local goods, hunting and foraging. A fetoria style building could be the answer for the late-game food supply, but then the mid-game food supply would struggle if there is not enought prey to hunt. I don’t think a market bonus would solve the issue too so maybe the entire concept is not viable at all.

And of course if they do a roman army-camp civ, it will be for the one centering on the civil wars / caesar period, bascially verything after the Marian reform. During the Punic war, the army system was not the “Legion” we all know about, it was a social-class based system and a temporary army raising/disbanding method.

I wonder if they will someday add a civ, vanilla or chronicle, that will have a unique / region towncenter variant, would be interesting.

[SMUM15236]

So the unused Vikings garrison flag was hint for AoE3 DLC?

Edit: And AoE4 DLC. So only Chronicles for AoE2 I guess.

[GoldenArmorX]

Yes.

The hints of a Escandinavia FLAG in the DB, that many believe were for AoE2 DLC danish, or norweign, sweden civs, were actually for 2 DLC:

AoE3 Danish-Norweign civ.

The Baltic Powers Expansion Coming to Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition...

AoE4 Viking civs.

Age of Empires IV: Raiders of the North - Announcement Trailer | Xbox Games Showcase 2026

[PersiasRerising]

No, in the game files where the flags are is another flag entry that is missing currently and has no model.

Aoe2 also gets a Scandinavian addition just as aoe3 and aoe4.

[Ekarlath]

@PersiasRerising

No, in the game files where the flags are is another flag entry that is missing currently and has no model.

The viking garrison flag is on the Last Chieftain patchnote, there is no missing file / entry yet, they are just not in the game so far. As in, their screenshot build got them but not our client, so they’ve already animated the garrison flag => they’re already working on the architecture, as they are tied to bilding / ram / ships.

[PersiasRerising]

The flag entries are numbered. But there is one number in the row of flags that is missing anything.

[robfbms]

Maybe the 2nd half of 2026 plus the 1st half of 2027 are the year of Scandinavia in the AOE franchise, just like 2025 plus the 1st half of 2026 were the year of China in AOE2 and AOMR – a year which arguably was extended to the first half of 2026 because of Yue Fei in AOE4.

[KHANATTILA]

@attilakan123

I think the next Chronicles DLC could begin in 280 BC with the start of the Pyrrhic War. It would be a natural bridge between Alexander the Great and the rise of Rome, because Pyrrhus still belonged to the Hellenistic world while his campaign in Italy introduced a direct conflict with the Roman Republic. From there, the story could continue through Rome’s conquest of Italy, the Punic Wars and the later expansion of the Republic.

I can believe that. Especially since, as Ornlu mentions in the lesson, the cultural aspect matters when it comes to sales, and “Pyrrhic victory” is a fairly common expression in various languages; so, people might well be intrigued by Pyrrhus.

[Ekarlath]

@PersiasRerising

The flag entries are numbered. But there is one number in the row of flags that is missing anything.

Can you detail that ?

What do you mean by flag entries, and what row are you talking about ?

Any source / Screenshot would be usefull here.

@KHANATTILA

and “Pyrrhic victory” is a fairly common expression in various languages; so, people might well be intrigued by Pyrrhus.

Yes but definitly not as the main focus of the chronicle. Of course they will ahve to feature this battle, it’s one of the goto of rome birth.

[MatM1996]

@attilakan123

That is a fair point, but the ending of Alexander’s campaign seems to hint at Rome rather than another Diadochi expansion. The narrator contrasts Alexander’s empire, which rose and collapsed quickly, with another power that was growing slowly and would endure for centuries. That description fits the Roman Republic much better than the successor kingdoms.

The Diadochi could still appear in a campaign or as background to the transition, but I think the final narration strongly suggests that the next major chapter will focus on Rome.

Yes, in my opinion they’ll jump straight to Rome and then see if they return for the Diadochi at some point, or if they’ll just go “pure Rome” until the end of Chronicles’ story…

@Ekarlath

Yes but now they use a differentm arketing strategy.

They never overlap their own release to be able to keep the hype on one producte, and also all the bugfix.

Also according to the X page profile picutre and banner change to the AoE3 dlc, it’s pretty straight forward to say no AoE2 content until september, and maybe ever later.

Yes, it must be that they realized they weren’t doing enough marketing for the Age of Empires 3 DLCs, so now they’ll only focus on the Age of Empires 3 DLC until they release the Nordic DLC for Age of Empires 4 in November…

@WindwardHail620

You don’t have to go that far back, this year they released the Gods Pack Demeter on February 10 and a week later on 17 February The Last Chieftains.

You’re right, but I don’t consider the Demeter DLC as important as the ones I mentioned…

@Ekarlath

The roman did not fight against the egyptian during the Caesar period, so there is no point in really adding them like they did for the Thracian where it was still legit to fight them, and to play one single scenario with them. They can add some scenario units yes, but my main concern about the egypt moment is that architecture design. It’s kinda also valid for the next viking dlc, if they add an architecture set, it’s because there is at least one new civ using it to be played in the payed content.

They did fight against Ptolemy…or at least that’s what I remember from the Roman campaign in EE1 TAoC…

@SMUM15236

So the unused Vikings garrison flag was hint for AoE3 DLC?

Yes, and the Norse DLC for Age of Empires 4…

@PersiasRerising

Aoe2 also gets a Scandinavian addition just as aoe3 and aoe4.

Yes, we need to see if some Viking units from AoE 4 will later be ported to AoE 2 (the Danish unique units from AoE 3 are too late for AoE 2)…

@robfbms

Maybe the 2nd half of 2026 plus the 1st half of 2027 are the year of Scandinavia in the AOE franchise, just like 2025 plus the 1st half of 2026 were the year of China in AOE2 and AOMR – a year which arguably was extended to the first half of 2026 because of Yue Fei in AOE4.

Sure, Norse DLC for AoE 3 (September), then for AoE 4 (November) and in between one for AoE 2 (October)…

@Ekarlath

Yes but definitly not as the main focus of the chronicle. Of course they will ahve to feature this battle, it’s one of the goto of rome birth.

So a Pyrrhic campaign, but from both perspectives: Macedonian and Roman…

[PersiasRerising]

@Ekarlath

Any source / Screenshot would be usefull here.

this “new Graphic” is currently set to no sprite

[Ekarlath]

@MatM1996

they realized they weren’t doing enough marketing for the Age of Empires 3 DLCs, so now they’ll only focus on the Age of Empires 3 DLC

It’s more they are now ready to speak about it, and they spoke about it too early last time. Nothing related to marketing, just the dlc was announced before it was in a stage where iut could be considered as ready.

And I think they saw all the AoE3 fans out there, to they revived the proejct of that dlc.

@MatM1996

So a Pyrrhic campaign, but from both perspectives: Macedonian and Roman…

More the roman defending from pyrrus invasion of italy. Sides flipped from the RoR version.

@PersiasRerising

this “new Graphic” is currently set to no sprite

Hm, alright I’m gonna study those new-graphic (which means: “row ready but not filled”, not necessarly “new”, as old lines also got that “new graphic” names.)

Also remember that chronicle civs currently don’t have their own garrison flag, so it may be for them too.

[smiki5five]

@Ekarlath

More the roman defending from pyrrus invasion of italy. Sides flipped from the RoR version.

Pyrrhus is such a big figure it’s a waste not to have him as the protagonist of at least part of the campaign.

Pyrrhus and Pyrrhic War - Kings and Generals DOCUMENTARY

On the topic of the Chronicles, the Tarentine Cavalry could be the UU of Italiotes/Tarentines, featuring in both the Pyrrhus’s wars and Roman conquests.

Tarantine Cavalry | Warriors of History

Edit: and I’m not sure if it counts as “defense”, since Greek and Italian city-states welcomed Pyrrhus as a liberator from Rome’s subjugation…