Age of Empires Online revealed

By Robert Purchese Published 17 August, 2010

Microsoft Flight in development too.

Microsoft has pulled back the curtain on Age of Empires Online for PC. The game, an MMO, will have free-to-play "experiences" and blend strategy with RPG.

There will be levelling and quests, plus incentives to help and team up with other people. Your capital city will exist persistently whether you're online or not, and there's an emphasis on "friendly rivalry".

Games for Windows - Live will be incorporated inherently, with nifty messaging and networking features to help keep in touch with friends.

Robot Entertainment - the studio formed from the ashes of Age of Empires creator Ensemble - will develop. The video below shows a simple, chunky and cartoony world. System requirements appear to be minimal, and the game's website claims you can "download and play from almost anywhere".

You can sign up for the beta on the Age of Empires Online website now.

Microsoft also announced a new Microsoft Flight Simulator project dubbed Microsoft Flight for PC. This will bring a "new perspective" to the 28-year-old series, apparently. There's a brief teaser video on the Microsoft Flight website. All we can glean from it is that there'll be a old-style planes to fly.

Age of Empires Online.

Picture of Robert.

About Robert Purchese

Bertie is Eurogamer's Senior Staff Writer. When he's not hunting down news stories he's often found playing with his kids or gabbling about fantasy games and strange online worlds.

Read more articles from Robert by visiting the Robert Purchese archive page.

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Comments (24) Latest comment 2 years ago

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  • Eraysor #1 2 years ago

    So glad there's a new flight game coming; that deserves a news article of its own! I just hope they don't dumb it down too much.

  • ignatiusjreilly #2 2 years ago

    I just hope they don't dumb it down too much.

    The fact that they removed the word 'simulator' from the title doesn't bode too well...

  • Haerger #3 2 years ago

    Online only? :(

    Offline mode would be nice too.

  • Bertie Verified Senior Staff Writer, Eurogamer.net #4 2 years ago

    Sorry I had to shoehorn Microsoft Flight at the bottom here - if there was a bit more information available I'd happily have waffled on about it in a separate story.

    Should find out more about the game this week. I've got a hunch it's going "accessible".

  • shadowaspect #5 2 years ago

    That... doesn't actually look all that terrible.

  • darkmorgado #6 2 years ago

    Microsoft's "mass market appeal" steamroller continues unabated, merrily crushing every much-beloved franchise in its path.

  • Shinetop #7 2 years ago

    The cartoony style will probably be offputting for a lot of fans of the series, but I don't know... I like AOE and I like timewasters. An RTS timewaster sounds like fun.

  • JahB #8 2 years ago

    Age of Farmville?

  • Dizzy #9 2 years ago

    I think It looks great.
    Edited by 1 at 17/08/10 @ 11:03

  • the_inchworm #10 2 years ago

    Dizzy's pleased with himself, eh? Personally I can't see why AoE needed to go down the MMO route. I loved it as a pure RTS. I'm unconvinced.

    Edit: Dizzy edited his spelling so my witty remark no longer makes sense :-(
    Edited by 1 at 17/08/10 @ 14:20

  • kar #11 2 years ago

    I reflexively want to hate this, but it could be so very cool. Yeah it's going to be 'age of farmville', but if they manage to blend casual friendly gameplay alongside the depth that was so characteristic of the aoe series they could be on to a winner.

    The main fear I have though is games for windows live. It sucks so horribly. I mean, it provides features like chat, achievements etc, but unless they spend some engineering time on making it more usable, less buggy, and definitely less rubbish, it doesn't matter how good the game is.

  • UncleLou #12 2 years ago

    Looks alright-ish, not something I am interested in, though.

  • vijay_UK #13 2 years ago

    I'm with Dizzy, it looks like it could be a lot of fun - sometimes PC games can be like too much hard work and forget what is so important in the first place.

  • LiveForever #14 2 years ago

    Is this Travian 2.0?

  • iamian #15 2 years ago

    So this was that project Spartan they were working on.

    Looks ok but persistant world and cities? Does that mean that when I log on after work I find that my people have been pillaged and decimated while I was away?? That doesn't sound like fun...

  • Dizzy #16 2 years ago

    Apparently your main city cannot be plundered, it is your mmo character in a way. You will go out of the city to fight battles and do quests. All seems very well thought out. Loot and xp will be used to upgrade your main city.
    Edited by 1 at 17/08/10 @ 11:07

  • Mudo #17 2 years ago

    Well the main city stuff should be well thought out, considering it was in age of empires III (albeit the city as a UI screen rather than actually built on a map)

  • CaptainKid #18 2 years ago

    Age of Empire 3 was not for me but this looks pretty good.
    "Robot Entertainment - the studio formed from the ashes of Age of Empires creator Ensemble - will develop."
    I don't understand why Ensemble was disband only to make a new studio..

    Edit.
    Games for Windows live, does that still even exist?
    Edited by 1 at 17/08/10 @ 11:46

  • makeamazing #19 2 years ago

    I think it looks great cartoony, but not age of empires. That was much more grity looking. Its a shame they have decided to go down this online route, the game was great as it was (well AOE 1 and 2).

  • rotmm #20 2 years ago

    The voiceover artist in the vid ordered me to "Sign up for the bayda today" at the end.

    Before making my decision, can someone tell me what a bayda is?

  • Zaiz #21 2 years ago

    @CaptainKid

    PC gamers don't talk about GfWL. In fact, I have it, uh, disabled for FO3. >.>

  • CaptainKid #22 2 years ago

    @Zaiz
    Just installed FO3 and was annoyed it installed Windows Live crap.
    How do you make it so the game runs (patch 1.07) without it?

  • Acrid #23 2 years ago

    Has a look of a Wii game to it, if you know what I mean, I'm interested in seeing more of this, particularly as it mentions free-to-play elements

  • paketep #24 2 years ago

    Bad bad Microsoft. This is nothing more than pissing all over the fans.