Age of Empires 2's largest patch ever is arriving 26 years after the game's debut

Age of Empires 2 and its Definitive Edition (DE) remaster are showing no signs of slowing down more than 26 years after the original game launched.

In case you missed it, the Age DE team shared a 'sneak peek' at a ton of new content coming soon to Age of Empires 2: Definitive Edition, a remaster that relaunched the game in 2021.

This comes on the heels of news that Age 2: DE is coming to PlayStation 5 and is set to receive yet another expansion with all-new content.

In 2024, I covered World's Edge Director of Production Earnest Yuen's remarks regarding the continued popularity of Age of Empires 2, with the game being "more widely played than ever" with a "vibrant eSports scene."

Yuen again took to X to add some additional details to the Age DE team's sneak peek.

As explained in the Age DE team's news post, there's not yet an exact date for when all of these changes, fixes, and new content will arrive. However, it's being lined up for a mid-April release.

The news post is "legendarily long," as the Age DE team puts it, with countless bug fixes, balance changes, features, and content laid out.

I pulled some of the standout bits, at least for me, but I urge you to read through the full release if you're a fan of the game.

• Introducing 25 new castle visuals, so that every single civilization uses its own unique castle.
• Every elite unique unit now uses a different visual compared to its non-upgraded counterpart.
• Introduced 6 Monk visuals that have been distributed to the relevant civilizations.
• Introduced 3 new Monastery visuals for Byzantines, Ethiopians, and shamanistic civilizations respectively.
• Attack animations are now synced up with the actual attacks of the unit, for better visual fidelity and gameplay readability.
• Improved attack animations and attack sounds sync for various melee units.
• Introduced a second set of attack animations for a large number of infantry and some other units, which will be randomly played in alternance with the existing attack animation.
• Pressing idle Villager button while holding down Shift now selects all idle Villagers.
• Added two new Random Maps, Glade and Fortified Clearing.
• Added one new Real World map, Great Wall.
• Added seven “Quick Start” map variations where players spawn with six additional Villagers.

• Added new trees.
• Added three new predatory animals.
• Added a new type of herdable animal with three color variations (brown, white, black) and only 65 food.
• AI now has a new scout rush exclusive on Extreme difficulty. This aims to address problematic behavior in the old scout rush where it would get stuck retreating to and from a TC and repeatedly sending scouts into spears.
• Reworked Villagers’ pathfinding which was making them take illogical routes upon completion of a building.
• Added or updated a very large number of attributes to support new gameplay functionalities, most notably alternative ranged attacks and hero active abilities such as special attacks or temporary auras. (Modding)

This is but a brief look at some of the standout notes from the sneak peek, with plenty more info about civilization balancing and changes, map balancing, and random map scripting available.

Tucked into the sneak peek is some new info about Age 2: DE's next expansion. It's explained that a full look isn't ready yet, but shared were details regarding five new civilizations headed to Age 2, all compatible with ranked multiplayer.

This update, expected to arrive sometime in April 2025, is completely free to anyone who already owns Age of Empires 2: Definitive Edition.

Last week, I shared an interesting story about how StarCraft played a big role in Age of Empires 2's development in 1999/2000.

I remarked that demand for RTS games has cooled in recent years, but it's clear that the Age team and all of its passion isn't going anywhere.

And for someone whose first real PC gaming experiences were firmly centered around Age of Empires 2, it really doesn't get any better.