8/30/2023 0 Comments Xbox age of empires 2Leave it on, however, and it’ll really hammer through that classic RTS busywork on your behalf. And if you feel you can do better without it, you can turn the AI automation off. The AI can be cycled between preset approaches with the right stick. The solution? An AI automaton that steps in and helps players take care of more of that stuff automatically, which allows players to shift their focus onto the larger-scale strategic decisions that will actually shape the flow of a match. Hopping around the map and performing ‘micro’ is a hell a lot easier on keyboard and mouse - but on controller, things are more sluggish, upping the stress level. “Both features are brand-new to the Age franchise, and resolved many of our outstanding design challenges, and at the same time, will significantly lower the barrier of entry for new players.” Which faction will you play as?Įarly prototypes of the console version didn’t have this feature, but Liu notes that the team quickly noticed that the “intense and repetitive aspects” of managing your villagers and other base units was proving to be taxing on players – both in terms of mentally staying on top of everything and physically executing it. “AI automation and site-based commands were our biggest game-changers during development,” Liu says of the console version’s most significant addition. But through experimentation, the Age of Empires team happened upon a single solution that could significantly lessen many of the genre’s controller-based ills – and it’s all about artificial intelligence. This meant new controls, new UI, new features, new tutorials, everything.”Īll console RTS ports have gone through some degree of iteration to even work, and even then not all avoid being headache-inducingly fiddly. “To truly deliver a gold standard console strategy game, we needed to rethink and rebuild everything from the ground up, and do what was right for console. “We discovered quickly that simply porting our deeply PC-centric game to Xbox was not going to provide the right gameplay experience. “Our team conducted a significant amount of research and prototyping during development,” Alex Liu, design director at AOE developer World’s Edge reveals. Compromises and adjustments have to be made, and this definitely appears to be a title that has placed a considerable emphasis on finding a truly elegant control input solution rather than simply muddling out some ‘good enough’ offering. This wasn’t a simple matter of a port, however – because this is a genre that can’t just be dumped onto console. The complete package now makes its way over to Xbox, acting both as an exciting release in its own right and as a sort of prelude to the much more contemporary Age of Empires 4, which is coming to Xbox later this year. This release truly is definitive, featuring everything from the original game, plus a smattering of new additions, and even the option to choose between the original 1999 enemy AI and more advanced versions. The Xbox launch trailer shows how impressive a feat Age of Empires II on console really is.įirst up is Age of Empires 2: Definitive Edition, a strong re-release with a beautiful 4K visual overhaul and a smattering of new content that was first released on PC in 2019. Age of Empires has hit Xbox, with a raft of improvements and tweaks to make it more accessible and easily playable on console, regardless of what control method you choose. Halo Wars was a decent bit of fun – and now another Microsoft strategy stalwart is entering Game Pass on console. I’d argue those games have a direct lineage in control scheme to Halo Wars. I have fond memories of those slightly-crap console ports of the earliest Command & Conquer games, and then C&C actually managed some pretty damn good controller-based releases of C&C3 and Red Alert 3. There have been a number of attempts over the years, of course. But a few types of game remain largely the purview of PC players – most notably, the real-time strategy genre. Many things previously thought impossible on consoles are now simple. We now have consoles that have online, graphics settings, and even keyboard and mouse support. As technology has developed, it’s felt as though the line between PC and console gaming, once vast, has significantly thinned.
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