Retro RTS fans, take note: the African Kingdoms expansion for Age of Empires II HD hits at the end of the week. Here’s what that will entail.
There’s four new civilizations along with four new, fully voice-acted campaigns (the lack of voice acting was a fairly common complaint with AoE II HD’s first, otherwise well-received, expansion). The action will, of course, take place on the African continent.
Apart from those, African Kingdoms will also tweak unit balance by, for example, adding some new naval units — these changes will affect the first expansion, but not the classic game. Oh, and there’s also a new Sudden Death game mode.
The trailer’s below. The expansion itself will launch on Steam this Thursday, on November 5.
Dayshot showcases some of the prettiest, funniest game-related screenshots and art that we can find.
Comments
6 responses to “A Look At What’s In The New Age Of Empires II Expansion”
I’m feeling very confused right now.
Hype!
=D
So who are making these expansions? A microsoft division?
Its from a game studio called Skybox Labs, but a lot of the original ideas/work have come from Forgotten Empires, who are an independent studio but have been working alongside Microsoft and Skybox Labs for a while now. To paraphrase their history page:
In 2011 they started working on a fan made mod for the original AoE2 called Forgotten Empires. They then showed the mod to Microsoft hoping for a bit of assistance but that’s when they found out Microsoft were busy working on AoE2HD. After AoE2HD was such a success, Microsoft approached them about turning their mod into an official expansion for AoE2HD, which then became AoE2HD: The Forgotten expansion.
They have since been working in conjunction with Skybox Labs and Microsoft on the new expansion.
Awesome! Thanks for the detailed reply. It’s good to hear that even Microsoft can go back to its earlier roots and especially collaborate with modders and the like. I haven’t got around to buying AoE2HD since I’ve still got the original but I might take the dip – it sounds like a blast
Yeah man, its def worth buying, much easier to play multiplayer games with mates via steam etc 🙂