Age of Empires 2: Definitive Edition E3 2019 Preview

June 19, 2019 at 3:29am
By Jason Stettner

One of my favorite RTS franchises of all time is Age of Empires, with the second entry being perhaps my absolute favorite of the genre. Luckily we’ve been getting Definitive Editions for each entry, and now it’s time for the second game to get touched up.

While at the Xbox Showcase event during a press time I was able to jump on for some excellent of Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition action. You can see that gameplay in action within the video, or just keep on reading about what it was like. They had a set demo in place for this, with a goal to get enough points for an awesome shirt. I didn’t know this as I was just chatting with the developers about my connection to the game and was lucky to earn that shirt.

This demo was a special situation where you had a set base, and were just heading out to destroy various enemy factions. I went in hard, and blasted away any of the enemy territories that I could within the time constraints.

I eventually exhausted my troops, and thought I failed. I actually did quite well score wise apparently, which was great. Aside from just battling, I did take some time to build a few things as I wanted to get that classic style of play with this impression. Some farms, getting some villagers out to mine for gold.

It feels great to handle, very smooth and the game looks excellent. Those visuals are stunning, and the quality of destruction is excellent. They’ve got a really great looking game here and I was truly impressed by what was presented. It really brings back that classic style featuring intense action, and detailed environments. The combat looks excellent, the troops all move correctly and that sense of scale has never felt more alive.

This was really just a small glimpse into what the game will present, a tease basically. I can’t wait to jump into the full package to review it as I really enjoyed their effort with the original when that came out with a Definitive Edition. Be sure to watch for more coverage on this in the future. Check out our preview of Battletoads below or the E3 2019 hub for additional coverage of the event.

Read our Battletoads E3 Preview
View our E3 2019 Hub