Age of Empires III "a huge mistake"

By Fred Dutton Published 14 February, 2011

RTS bit off more than it could chew.

The third entry in Microsoft's PC strategy series was "a huge mistake", according to a key member of the development team.

In an interview with Kotaku, Bruce Shelley, founder of series creator Ensemble Studios, explained that the developer had tried too hard to reinvent the series and broken the game in the process.

"With Age of Empires 3 we tried all of these new ideas," he said. "I think it was a huge mistake."

"We wanted to create something that was 30 per cent the same, 30 per cent borrowed and 30 per cent innovative. I think we tried to do too much."

Shelley added that late on in development Ensemble tried to backtrack and restore the series' traditional gameplay template. However, it was too late.

"It was like being a child changing all of the dials on a television and then trying to get that picture back. It just wasn't an Age game anymore."

The studio even asked Microsoft to take the Age of Empires brand off the game prior to its release back in 2005 but the publisher refused.

Eurogamer awarded the finished product 7/10, insisting, "Even with the new home cities, gameplay feels tired and characterless. Bombarding players with shiny baubles and inconsequential gifts can't hide that."

Following a couple of expansions for the game, Ensemble Studios went on to make Halo Wars for Xbox 360, before disbanding in 2009. Shelley now works for Farmville developer Zynga.

The Age of Empires franchise lives on though. Last year Microsoft announced that a new free-to-play reboot is under development at Robot Entertainment. A release is due later this year.

Picture of Fred.

About Fred Dutton

Fred Dutton is Eurogamer's US news editor, based in Washington DC.

Read more articles from Fred by visiting the Fred Dutton archive page.

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Comments (24) Latest comment 1 year ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • dirtysteve #1 1 year ago

    Age of Empires -> Halo Wars -> Zynga games. No wonder this article is tinged with regret.

  • paketep #2 1 year ago

    AoE3 was not up to par with Age of Kings, true, but if AoE3 has to be considered a "huge mistake", then the incoming abortion that is called "Age of Empires Online" has to be the biggest fuckup in the history of videogames.

    Shame on you, Microsoft.

  • IronCladChicken #3 1 year ago

    @paketep
    Sounds like MS' equivelent of 'Might and Magic Heroes Kingdoms' (UbiSoft) & 'Lord Of Ultima' (EA)

  • Shinetop #4 1 year ago

    @paketep: have you even tried AoE Online?

  • mull #5 1 year ago

    I always felt that Rise of Nations was the deserved heir to the mighty AoE 2. I'd love to see a modern RTS to follow in the footsteps of those classics.

    /strokes AoE2 tshirt

  • DirectAim #6 1 year ago

    Zynga, lol, so he has retired from the games industry?

  • orakio #7 1 year ago

    I thought AOE3 was rather good actually, had some great fun with the single player campaign.

  • twh104 #8 1 year ago

    Wha.. Age of Empires III was brilliant!

  • Moarachanox #9 1 year ago

    lol?

  • daftshadow #10 1 year ago

    AOE3 was a pretty good game. AoM was the best though. We need another one!

  • LeeroyJenkins #11 1 year ago

    I liked AoE III!!!

  • nesta #12 1 year ago

    AoE 3 was pretty sweet, what is this tool talking about?

    Go back to work on farmville

  • Stratix #13 1 year ago

    I really enjoyed playing AoE III. Many hours of my time well spent.

  • King_of_Hyrule #14 1 year ago

    This is how I would rank the AOE series

    1. AOK: The Conquerers (and one of my favourite games of all time)
    2. Age of Kings
    3. Age of Empires
    4. Age of Mythology
    5. AOE: Rise of Rome
    6. Age of Empires III: The Asian Dynasties
    7. Age of Mythology: The Titans
    8. Age of Empires III
    9. Age of Empires III: Warlords

  • Saxo #15 1 year ago

    AOE III was great fun imo. However nothing compares to Age of Empires 2: The Conquerers still great fun to this day :D

  • Inigo #16 1 year ago

    I like AOE3 :( I really enjoyed playing comp stomp with a friend.

    Developers always seem to bash there old games just to get free advertising for there new game.

  • Lusterpurge #17 1 year ago

    "We wanted to create something that was 30 per cent the same, 30 per cent borrowed and 30 per cent innovative. I think we tried to do too much."

    According to my math, it seems they did too little.

  • patootik #18 1 year ago

    AOE was ok, not terrible by any means, made me happily addicted for a few days. Tell you what I loved though, the AOE and AOM turn based strategy games on DS, holy shit those were some deep strategy titles for a handheld! But yeah AOEII, what a game.

    Oh yeah and I think the dude forgot 10%

  • dagas #19 1 year ago

    Age of Empires and Empire Earth both got sequels, but the best stone age to modern age RTS is IMO Rise of Nations. Too bad there was never a sequel for that.

  • Mnia786 #20 1 year ago

    AoE II was pretty much the pinnacle in RTS and remained so for a long time. I think there was so little they could do to alter the raw mechanics so created an empire building RTS - something which didn't bode well. AoE III was not bad by any means but why is most AoE fans still play II?

    English longbows anyone?!

  • gingerlink #21 1 year ago

    30% the same + 30% borrows + 30% innovative = 90% of a game

    There's your problem!

  • butler` #22 1 year ago

    @Mnia786
    Ye AoE2 was a really big deal online. I remember that, even up until a few years ago, cdkeys were going for £15+.

    I didn't mind AoE3. It's one of those, "but now you mention it..." situations, where I can see it did lose its way a bit.

  • Eisenstein #23 1 year ago

    AoE 3 was pretty sweet, what is this tool talking about?

    Yeah, what a tool for acknowledging his own mistakes. For telling what critics, fans and sales and apparently even the developer (his studio) said back then: A genuinely good game, but far from the brilliant game that's a worthy successor to AoK and AoM. Worse than Rise of Nations that had arrived two years before.

    That's why AoE 3 has a metacritic rating of 81, which isn't shabby at all, but a far cry from the 91 AoK had or even the 89 RoN received.

  • Phishfood #24 1 year ago

    How the mighty have fallen