While Age of Empires branding would undoubtedly shift units alone, it faces more rivals than ever, with high expectations the wait. Avoiding that identity conflict is essential for any sequel, where Age of Empires straddles the line between legacy fan expectations and realities of the modern RTS space. 'It's been an interesting balance, going back and forth between things that people love about the older Age games and things that we want to do in the new one,' said Isgreen.

It's this great two-way conversation between the old games and the new one, about what we're going to share, and how we're going to grow the games.' All of the Definitive Edition games are now going to have Relic's modern networking backend. For example, the network technology behind the scenes is actually from Relic. There are things that we've learned in the development of Age of Empires IV that we can even put into Age II. 'It's been a real growing experience, but it's unfair to say that it's one way. 'e've learned so much with all of the launches,' said Adam Isgreen, creative director at World's Edge. The trio of Definitive Edition projects evoked learnings for World's Edge and its partners, and all considered headed into number four. That's equally true for Age of Empires IV, which balances staying true to its legacy while standing out today. Modernizing past systems has been fundamental to each remaster, with minor adjustments that reflect expectations of modern strategy, but retaining classic foundations. 'All of that difference came from the history, it's as accurate as we can possibly get it.' Age of Empires and Age of Empires II saw commendable efforts from third-party talent at Forgotten Empires, while Age of Empires III remains an ongoing project at Tantalus Media. Those dedicated 'Definitive Edition' bundles pair titles with respective expansions, alongside 4K upgrades and eliminating frustrations of dated systems. Age of Empires IV paves the future, developed adjacently to remasters of the Age of Empires trilogy.

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