According to well-versed people in the way Microsoft handles it's games, Age of Empires 2 Definitive Edition should go end of life by the end of 2026, seven years after its release. On the other hand, it is unlikely that this would be the end for the game, as it is by far the most popular game in the franchise. What I predict here, in April of 2025, is the new version of the game they may announce alongside with the end of life of the previous. I'm calling it the Millenium Edition for no specific reason.
The core mechanics should remain intact. That is, the four resources and their role in the game. Similarly, the start of the game with the town center, villagers, boars and the dark age build orders should change very little, so that old players can easily pick up the game.
What should change is the unit interactions, the building requirements, the technologies and, obviously the civilizations. This would be an opportunity to rebuild types of units from the beginning, specially the most discussed water balance. Also, developers could more heavily lean towards regional units with, for example, variations of the spearman with subtle differences depending on the region, something that can be easily ignored by most players but where hard-core ones could look for optimizations or good synergies.
The Chronicles DLC also has a lot of ideas that could be exported to new civilizations. I'm thinking, specifically of the mutually exclusive unique technologies which would allow to specify the civilization mid game depending on the opponent or the map.
Another mechanic that I thought of recently is units of which you can only produce a certain amount of, either throughout the game without the chance of doing more once they die or a simultaneous amount and you can build more once the existing ones die. These units could serve as very powerful siege units for final pushes or sort of captains, "mini-heroes" with conversion resistance that have an aura effect to improve nearby units, like what the centurion does right now but with greater effect.
All the previous ideas can be implemented right away or may require some minor changes to the code. For example, the captain units right now may not cost population space in order to control the maximum number of them. Regardless, it would be a minor development process to adapt the existing engine to the new features.
And right there, in the ease to add these new features to the game, lies the base for what I believe this new Age of Empires 2 Millenium Edition would be: a rework, a reimagination or reinvention of the civilizations and mechanics without actually changing the core game and the way it works. This keeps the competitive scene intact as pro players would just need to learn new unit interactions but not game play mechanics.
Then, Microsoft can release a game with a dozen of civilizations, new editions of existing ones with modified bonuses, two pairs of mutually exclusive technologies, a captain unit and some variations on the common units, not to mention reworked campaigns. From there, you can have periodic DLCs adding new civilizations and keep earning money for another seven or ten years.
If that way of re-monetizing AoE 2 is not enough, they could introduce a subscription to get a “co-pilot”, an additional program that would make sure the town center is producing villagers, they are distributed properly and would build houses when needed, maybe at the expense of slower times or extra cost so that a competent human player could easily overcome it. Also, the co-pilot could monitor the units and upgrades it sees in the game to recommend counter units or strategies. A feature like that, aimed at democratizing the game, would likely be well received, even if it comes at an extra cost.
This idea of a Millenium Edition both interests me and terrifies me. It interests me from a programming point of view, to explore how far we can push the engine of a twenty year old game and imagine things that could have been there since the beginning. On the other hand, it terrifies me because it gives Microsoft yet another way of reselling the game after the HD and DE version, with a likely chance that they would still make a lot of money. I fear that I’ll be right in at least part of this and we’ll be forced to buy a new game if we want to play multiplayer.
The core mechanics should remain intact. That is, the four resources and their role in the game. Similarly, the start of the game with the town center, villagers, boars and the dark age build orders should change very little, so that old players can easily pick up the game.
What should change is the unit interactions, the building requirements, the technologies and, obviously the civilizations. This would be an opportunity to rebuild types of units from the beginning, specially the most discussed water balance. Also, developers could more heavily lean towards regional units with, for example, variations of the spearman with subtle differences depending on the region, something that can be easily ignored by most players but where hard-core ones could look for optimizations or good synergies.
The Chronicles DLC also has a lot of ideas that could be exported to new civilizations. I'm thinking, specifically of the mutually exclusive unique technologies which would allow to specify the civilization mid game depending on the opponent or the map.
Another mechanic that I thought of recently is units of which you can only produce a certain amount of, either throughout the game without the chance of doing more once they die or a simultaneous amount and you can build more once the existing ones die. These units could serve as very powerful siege units for final pushes or sort of captains, "mini-heroes" with conversion resistance that have an aura effect to improve nearby units, like what the centurion does right now but with greater effect.
All the previous ideas can be implemented right away or may require some minor changes to the code. For example, the captain units right now may not cost population space in order to control the maximum number of them. Regardless, it would be a minor development process to adapt the existing engine to the new features.
And right there, in the ease to add these new features to the game, lies the base for what I believe this new Age of Empires 2 Millenium Edition would be: a rework, a reimagination or reinvention of the civilizations and mechanics without actually changing the core game and the way it works. This keeps the competitive scene intact as pro players would just need to learn new unit interactions but not game play mechanics.
Then, Microsoft can release a game with a dozen of civilizations, new editions of existing ones with modified bonuses, two pairs of mutually exclusive technologies, a captain unit and some variations on the common units, not to mention reworked campaigns. From there, you can have periodic DLCs adding new civilizations and keep earning money for another seven or ten years.
If that way of re-monetizing AoE 2 is not enough, they could introduce a subscription to get a “co-pilot”, an additional program that would make sure the town center is producing villagers, they are distributed properly and would build houses when needed, maybe at the expense of slower times or extra cost so that a competent human player could easily overcome it. Also, the co-pilot could monitor the units and upgrades it sees in the game to recommend counter units or strategies. A feature like that, aimed at democratizing the game, would likely be well received, even if it comes at an extra cost.
This idea of a Millenium Edition both interests me and terrifies me. It interests me from a programming point of view, to explore how far we can push the engine of a twenty year old game and imagine things that could have been there since the beginning. On the other hand, it terrifies me because it gives Microsoft yet another way of reselling the game after the HD and DE version, with a likely chance that they would still make a lot of money. I fear that I’ll be right in at least part of this and we’ll be forced to buy a new game if we want to play multiplayer.
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