I’ve been enjoying age of empires 4 on steam deck, along with age of mythology.
I recently purchased age of empires 2, which is the most popular game in the franchise by far, and I was shocked to discover there’s zero controller support while the console versions have it.
What’s the rationale for not having controller support on Age of Empires 2 ? Which is easily the most popular game in the franchise with the most single player content ? I’d love to kick back and play on my steam deck while enjoying this timeless classic.
Has the developer given any information on if it’s in the roadmap and if it’s not, why not ?
There’s no official say on it as far as I know. Let’s hope they port it at some point, they already have it coded, it can’t be that difficult. They ported the game to Mac last month, so maybe Linux/SteamDeck support is next along with Controller Support.
I really hope they do. I’m getting back into the game with a friend, he’s way better than me and I’ve always been a noob, but we play vs AI cooperatively. Seeing their controller support for Xbox and PS5 makes the game so much easier to read and understand what each unit does etc. Devs, if you’re reading this thread, please reconsider porting the same controller support from console to PC, as an alternative option!
Completely agree ! Microsoft and Xbox are all about options.
Why not let PC gamers use controllers ?
Especially us handheld PC gamers. Aoe2 is currently impossible to play on a steam deck or Xbox rog ally but age of empires 4 and mythology are, and play fantastic with controller support on PC !
“Impossible” is a strong word, Steam Input is pretty good (I’ve been playing a lot using the trackpads as mouse) but YES it does require more effort to configure and get used to, and official Controller Support would be a GREAT, but is pretty playable right now if you are willing to try.
Yes I DO agree with you, and I believe there’s high chance that they’ll be adding it soon, specially seeing that they are doing it for the other games and doing things like adding support for Mac.
Although like I said, the game is not “unplayable”, only more “uncomfortable” for a casual user on handhelds. At least this game is being updated and has the chance of official support, playing older RTS on handheld dooms you to use Steam input as your only choice.
Right now, the only thing we can do is to keep kindly reminding them once in a while like you did (without reaching the point of being overly mad or annoying, we want healthy discussion)
But the reason may simply be that the core pc engine has not yet been worked to support controller. Think of the console version as a different software, with different input listening code, it’s not the pc version for console, it’s a console version.
I’m pretty sure you can easily bind your controller keys toward keyboard keys to play with your controller, it’s a very old pc concept to be able to use gamepads on games not supporting it.