Age of Empires II HD arriving April 9


Recommended Posts

The problem with updating the controls and mechanics etc is you risk alienating fans. They aren't buying this game for modern things, they're buying it for Nostalgia, if everything feels like AoE2, it'll go down better.

Well, that's a double-edged sword. Try to please existing fans too much and you'll alienate new players with different expectations. Personally I feel like if you're going to enhance an existing game, you might as well improve everything you can and do away with what wasn't working. If the nostalgic crowd finds it too different, they can always play the original after all.

This looks like Age of Conquerors + a new renderer + some redone sprites + steam integration. It remains to be seen if there's any significant gameplay improvements; the controls are quite dated by today's (and by that I mean Starcraft 2)'s standards: there's no attack-move, no multi-building smart queuing, no unit order queuing, no queuing of researches with units, no camera hotkeys, etc. All these things would be relatively easy to add but it'd take the right vision. I can't wait to see more details.

I agree, new price will only work if gameplay is improved, but not changed dramatically !

I'm am looking forward to this so much you wouldn't believe. I sunk so many hours into this game after getting for free with an old computer we used to have and my list of saved games was huge...I played a multiplayer game on it a couple of months ago through GameRanger but it's a bit buggy, so this will be absolutely brilliant.

I don't really see why so many people are complaining either, sure it hasn't had a big visual makeover but if I'm honest I think it's better that way. It's not a remake, and they're not charging ?30 for it, it's just a 1080p version with some new textures and features. Steam Workshop and proper multiplayer lobbies is reason enough for me to get this!

  • Like 2

?11 is overpriced? Didn't you buy SimCity...

It's actually ?15, discounted to ?13.50 if you preorder (which is always a dubious prospect without reviews). That's pretty steep when it's essentially just a tweaked version of the game I played fifteen years ago, especially when for a similar price you can usually pick up AAA titles within 6 months of release. And no, I didn't buy SimCity but even if I had that's a modern game that's just been released.

  • 4 weeks later...

Remake reaction thus far:

Terrible. Completely unplayable. The framerate issues are horrendous and multiplayer simply doesn't work. And there are so many other little bugs it's simply unbelievable.

And, if you're running on XP, you won't even be able to play the game because it calls for API's that apparently don't exist!

Sigh.

Remake reaction thus far:

Terrible. Completely unplayable. The framerate issues are horrendous and multiplayer simply doesn't work. And there are so many other little bugs it's simply unbelievable.

And, if you're running on XP, you won't even be able to play the game because it calls for API's that apparently don't exist!

Sigh.

It came out early?

Played it for 4 hours today with no issues at all. The workshop support for Steam is pretty nice as well. Haven't tried multiplayer yet though.

Still one of my favorite games of all time. :D

Played it for 4 hours today with no issues at all. The workshop support for Steam is pretty nice as well. Haven't tried multiplayer yet though.

Still one of my favorite games of all time. :D

You're one of the lucky few. Can't even play on single player for over half an hour or it starts to lag like hell :/

Hopefully they patch it soon.

If people are getting this running perfectly, I am not sure how... the forums and everyone around seems to be having trouble - and the devs acknowledged some that they are already working on (which means they are launching with the known bugs, sheesh).

The HD in this is laughable, and some textures look worse, believe it or not.

This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Posts

    • The Trump administration doesn't want you to use OpenAI's GPT-5.6 without its approval by David Uzondu Image via @realDonalTrump (X) As OpenAI prepares the release of its next model, GPT 5.6, the White House has instructed the company to limit the distribution of the software to a small group of government-approved partners instead of the general public, as it has done with previous releases. According to The Information, OpenAI Chief Executive Officer Sam Altman sent an internal memo to staff on Thursday explaining that the federal government will approve access "customer by customer" during an initial preview phase. Altman noted in the communication that this restrictive rollout is "not [their] long-term model" for software deployment, and the company plans to work toward a "more sustainable" distribution method later. CNN said that both OpenAI and the Trump administration view the capabilities of GPT 5.6 on the same level as Anthropic's Mythos and that government officials intend to "collaborate with frontier AI labs to develop shared approaches for addressing the challenges of scaling this technology." The latest restriction comes just weeks after the US Commerce Department decided to restrict Fable, a version of Mythos with extra safety "guardrails" to prevent users from exploiting software vulnerabilities. Not long after the release, though, researchers at Amazon found a way to bypass these restrictions, prompting an aggressive response from federal authorities. The government ordered Anthropic to cut off access for non-US citizens located outside the US, non-US citizens living inside the US, and incredibly, even Anthropic's own foreign-born employees. Anthropic now appears to be building a workaround to resolve this compliance block with an update to its Privacy Policy that introduces a category called "Verification Data" to handle KYC and Digital IDs. This setup could mandate digital identity checks to filter users by nationality, requiring a government-issued ID and facial biometric data. Who knows? Maybe in the future, you would have to scan your US Passport or State ID to prove your citizenship before you are allowed to chat with Fable 5 (or any other model).
    • When Windows 7 was released I created an AutoHotkey script that uses Alt+` as a keyboard shortcut to move a window across monitors. I have been using that script for over 15 years and this is the first time I have come across another app that uses the same shortcut!
    • I called it last year that they wouldn't end support when they said there would. There are too many people still on Windows 10 waiting for something better to upgrade to and 11 ain't it! The recent promises of fixing Windows 11's many problems is nice, but unless they deliver on those promises in a big way then I expect customers will still want to stick with 10.
    • Full ACK. I went too far adressing your post specifically. And as you said, it up to us customers as participant of the market dynamic as it happens to decide whether we spend our money on a product or not. The responsibility is to the company. In case of this price hike one could assume that MS is expecting or even starting to see a new interest in XBox hardware so they want to avoid losses per unit sold. I find it fair enough that they granted a period in which everyone interested could grab a unit for the current price (Amazon.de has a reliable stock of XBox Series X digital, which I bought last December after having sold my day one Series X a year ago). It is not that they cash up their customers starting on Monday. Cheers and let's cling to our perfectly fine hardware as long as we deem it worthy in relation to purchasing something new!
  • Recent Achievements

    • Week One Done
      xvvxcvv earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • One Month Later
      xvvxcvv earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • Enthusiast
      Xonos went up a rank
      Enthusiast
    • Conversation Starter
      Admir earned a badge
      Conversation Starter
    • First Post
      The_Focal_Point earned a badge
      First Post
  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      411
    2. 2
      +Edouard
      169
    3. 3
      PsYcHoKiLLa
      129
    4. 4
      neufuse
      69
    5. 5
      Xenon
      67
  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!