It’s been a while, yet fans remain eager but patient for the upcoming Age of Empires IV. Fortunately, it sounds like we won’t have to wait that much longer. A development update reveals that they have a working prototype of the game and that progress is going well.
The Age of Empires website recently posted a 2020 year in review with World’s Edge studio head Shannon Loftis. In it, Loftis talks about the community Age of Empires 3: Definitive Edition, and of course, Age of Empires 4.
Loftis playfully brags about how well development on AoE4 is going, sharing that the game has been in a playable state internally.
“We are making great progress on Age of Empires IV. I don’t want to make you jealous, but we are literally playing this game every single day—both in Washington and in Vancouver.”
This isn’t to say that the game is in a perfect state right now. She expands on some of the difficulties the development team is now facing.
“RTS development is funny: it takes a while to build the separate systems (AI, economy, sim, rendering, etc), and then it takes a while for them to come together. But when they do, you suddenly have a game—a game that needs debugging and balance and polish— but the core of the game that you know you’re going to ship. And the best part is that it feels like an Age of Empires game.”
This is all while also transitioning from an office environment to a work-from-home one, a needed task due to the COVID pandemic. Though from the sounds of things, they overcame that challenge relatively well and it’s not hindered development that much.
We’re glad to hear that the studio is doing well and that the game is nearing its completion. It’s clear that a lot of passion is being put into this project. We can’t wait to play for ourselves!
