According to Microsoft, the Age of Empires 4, announced more than three years ago, is still in progress and progress is being made.

At XO19 in November 2019, Microsoft actually showed an excerpt from the Age of Empires 4 (see video below), but hasn’t heard a peep about it ever since.

In a blog post summarizing what’s happening in the Age of Empires franchise, Shannon Loftis, studio director at World’s Edge, said, “We’re making great strides in Age of Empires 4.”

“I don’t want to make you jealous, but we literally play this game every day-in both Washington and Vancouver,” Loftis continued.

“Interesting RTS development: It takes time to build discrete systems (artificial intelligence, economics, simulation, rendering, etc.) and it takes some time for them to be integrated. But once they are integrated, Suddenly the game happens. It’s a game that needs modification. And balance and polish-but the essence of the game is that you know to charge. And the best part is that Feels like the era of the empire.

Age of Empires 4 was announced in August 2017 with Relic, the developer of Heroes and Dawn of War. World’s Edge is a Microsoft-owned studio that runs the Age of Empires franchise rather than dealing with development.

“Our relic partner was a great advocate as we all moved development from the office to home and coordinated the process to facilitate productivity to get the game on the right track,” Loftis said. Told.

“Many passions like these developers, artists, designers, narrators, audio professionals, and society-not to mention the core features that keep the company running.”

Loftis has stopped publishing the Age of Empires 4 release window but expects it to appear in 2021.

These are busy times in the area of ​​Age of Empires. Microsoft released Age of Empires 3: Definitive Edition in October 2020, and Lords of the West DLC for Age of Empires 2: Definitive Edition will be released shortly.