If they’re looking for a Principal Engineer to handle Unreal projects going forwards, the thread title is definitely being optimisatic.
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Maybe a new RTS game is in the works and not necesarily would be part of the Age of Empires Franchise
Remeber that MS is also owner of StarCraft, WarCraft, Empire Earth and Halo Wars, through its subsidiaries and commercial agreements
BUT, This is the important section!
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They are focused on Age of Empires as a franchise specifically, more intently on the live service functionality in the posting. Not sure what to make of it, personally.
What part of the franchise could be considered ‘live-service’? Their updates and DLC loosely fall into that category, but I always thought that was referring more to ongoing monetization (season passes, in-game store, cosmetics).
That being said… Rise of Nations 2 anyone?
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The updates, patches and hotfixes. YES!
They should keep on making DLCs
On the other hand a Rise of Nations 2 or Definitive Ediiton would be awesome!
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Ingame / community events, seasonal stuff, and so on. Stuff outside of the usual post-release support cycle that gives players rewards.
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Yeah, I was thinking the same thing, honestly. Hiring a Principal Engineer is the very beginning of a project, and for an engine they have no experience developing for I imagine the onboarding and training post-hire is going to take a year or more.
We probably won’t see this news bear fruit for several years. I was thinking not seeing a release candidate until ~2030.
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I am still hoping they can do a remake of Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds
Rise of Nations 2 would certainly be great if it were made in a new engine, like Unreal Engine 5.
In my opinion, they could fix some things that were missing in Rise of Nations 1.
There could be more unique units in each age, to properly represent each civilization.
There could be new classes of infantry, cavalry, archers, and crossbowmen, and even more, such as various types of tanks, now including light, medium, and heavy tanks, tank destroyers, and so on.
Another thing that could come is a new age: After World War II, there could be the Cold War age (which lasted 55 years on average). After that, we could move on to the current age, in which more current technologies are researched and unlocked.
The cool thing about Rise of Nations was the territory conquest system, which consisted of dominating enemy city centers and thus expanding one’s domains (unlike what is seen in Company of Heroes, which involves dominating flags).
Another cool thing is that there were many types of collectible and acquirable resources. I remember them as: Food, Wood, Metal, “Wealth” (money), “Knowledge” (studies), Oil… and finally, there were the rare resources distributed throughout the map, which were numerous, I don’t remember all of them, for example, there were: horses, furs, obisidian, marble, copper, coal, diamonds, sulfur, sugar, aluminum, titanium, citrus fruits, and so on.
Honestly, the resources were incredible.
Not to mention the Wonders… which were used differently than in AoE2. Each wonder added economic, military, or even defensive bonuses and could be conquered and acquired by the invading player.
It would be great if we could see a “Rise of Nations 1 Definitive Edition” with improvements and extra content (for example, based on the old Mods, which added extra units)… And finally, they should definitely develop a “Rise of Nations 2” to expand the game with much more content and a new era (Cold War).
For now, it’s just a dream… but it doesn’t hurt to dream.
I’ve been waiting for years… for a “Star Wars: Galactic Battlegrounds Definitive Edition” and for that MOD called “Expanding Fronts” to be added as new DLC (it includes new civilizations and units, based on a lot of new content from the STAR WARS universe).
Who knows, maybe one day… we’ll be able to buy it and play it.
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They just don’t wanted to invest more in AOE IV, there are 2 reasons: the engine that is own by relic and hard to master for new devs and AOE IV popularity, a game that mirrors AOE 2 but with lower quality.
microsoft is scared of controversies, bad for the brand
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No such thing as bad publicity.
AOE 5 will not be about Medieval times, and it’s enough to make AOE 4 a long successful game.
Dude, AOE4 is far better in originality than AOE2.
People live in the past and the nostalgia. Nowadays, when you look AOE2 gameplay, even with DLC and Updates, it feels so archaic. And i love the memories i have about this era. But i’ve resigned to the fact that we can’t fuel forever an outdated game. His success is made by country where computers are more cheap too (AOE 1 DE is a good example in Vietnam).
AOE 4 has mixed the best of the past AOEs
- Civs are unique (not at all the case in AOE2)
- Better graphics
- Age choice is well-made (multiple ways to play in each civs)
- Game Rythm is good (rarely more than 1 hour to close a game, on average 25min games)
- New civs never seen in the franchise
- Less is more, what’s the purpose to have 30 or 40 civs is anything rely on a copy and paste ?
- New game mechanics (dot, hot, ground aoe, auras, pve objectives in pvp, active skills, synergies on units …)
Hate it or love it, AOE4 is our future.
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if you’ve seen how aoe3 was handled with DE cuz political correctness (they made 0 changes to aoe1 DE or 2 DE content in this regard for instance) then you understand perfectly why they lack the balls to go past medival period
was gonna say smt but i realize that horse was already beaten to death plenty of times
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I wish we would come at a point where people would stop using this non-argument. It’s perfectly fine and valid to play old(er) games without having any nostalgic feeling attached to it.
Vietnam plays the original AoE 1 release, not 1 DE. The latter was never able to catch the Vietnamese players for various reasons.
Can we maybe stop calling them “unique” but instead call them “asymmetric”? Because that’s what they are.
Well, unless you skipped AoE 3 20 years ago. Which brings me to the next quote…
- I assume dot means “damage over time”? AoE 3 has it with the Jungle Bowman
- Hot surely means “heal over time”. Well.. Berserks in AoE 2 also do that since 1999
- Not sure what you mean with ground aoe and auras, can you elaborate?
- With Pve objectives in pvp you mean Sacred Sites, right? AoE 3 already has it in shape of the Trade Monopoly
- Active Skills is likewise something units in AoE 3 have, e.g. the Portuguese Explorer can use the Spyglass that uncovers a certain area on the map.
As I always say: the AoE series doesn’t only consist of AoE 2 and 4, it is surely worth checking out the other titles as well. 
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Every day I think more and more that if there’s a new AoE, it will almost certainly be based on the ancient era.
Something tells me that’s the case, since I don’t think they want to repeat the same medieval era again or taking too many risks in modern wars with fewer empires.
I’m not mistaken, the most viral empire is the Roman Empire, just as the most famous emperors (among others) are Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar. Interestingly, this coincides with the AoE2 DLCs.
This is all just speculation from some job postings.
Could be a mobile game, AoE5, AoM2, something totally different, etc…
They’re definitely developing a AAA game.
AoM Retold was released very recently, and I doubt they’ll make another AoE Mobile game when they already made one very recently.
It’s either some kind of AoE Remake or an AoE V, or, if Microsoft hands it over to WE, some kind of Rise of Nations, but the latter is unlikely.