Latest Review: 24th April 2022

After 2.5 years of release, i am finally going to recommend this game as playable to my friends circle. Makes me think how ethical it is to release and get paid to push an underdeveloped game into the market. Can only be done by big name studios.

I am also happy about how dynamic the updates/patches which come with the dlcs are. Small civ changes here and there keep the game fresh and enjoyable.

All the best to everyone in the AOE2 community. Keep playing and enjoying this bful game.

(Date: 2nd March 2020)

We get updates every month now, updates are basically
10% new stuff
30% fixing bugs caused due to new stuff from last update
30% fixing release bugs
10% balancing
20% improving the AI, pathfinding (have seen no real improvements but okay)
Every update fixes some bugs and brings in new bugs, and the surprising thing is the total number of bugs keep on increasing! The latest bugs? More overall crashes after the update, Broken Matchmaking - players unable to see multiple basic stuff like 1. Civs in the loading screen (before the start), 2. chat (which also gives various alerts which are now missing), 3. Names of the opponents, etc.


(Date: 24th Jan 2020)
Its been two months, the developers are still balancing and bug fixing, updates are game breaking, and are being followed by hotfixes. This solidifies my point that the game is not fully functional and should still be in beta. Multiple reports of random disconnects and crashes still exist, I have experienced a few too. The game is open to user made mods, but many of them are not compatible with the game, or worse the compatibility changes with every patch. Game is still in a very crude stage, sadly the answer to "Do you recommend this game?" is still No.


(Date: 9th Jan 2020)
AOE2DE is more beautiful, has a better resolution, has additional civs and has some good features like zoom that make it really tempting to buy over the AOE2HD or as they call it now AOE2 2013 version.
It still lacks optimization, frame rates are still uneven, spectator mode has multiple bugs, units' natural attack reactions are unreliable; but the overall situation is better than how it was at the launch. Still feels like we are progressing through stages of beta, awaiting more optimization updates.
Right now I still prefer AOE2HD over this version, but the improvements in the Christmas update are encouraging.


(Date: 14th Nov 2019)
I love the Age of Empires group of games. Have about 3000+ hrs on all of them combined.
The additions they have made to AOE2HD are perfect, and it is totally worth the money.
But, the game is highly unoptimized, it feels like I am still beta testing it.
The frame rates are not constant, you can lag through one part of the game and breeze through the other.
Also I am not sure but I think the game is CPU intensive in a world where people care more about GPUs.
But then again, the problems aren't unsolvable, hopefully they get fixed. Till they exist, its gonna be a NO.

[h1] Game is finally stabilising after 2.5 years of release [/h1] Latest Review: 24th April 2022 After 2.5 years of release, i am finally going to recommend this game as playable to my friends circle. Makes me think how ethical it is to release and get paid to push an underdeveloped game into the market. Can only be done by big name studios. I am also happy about how dynamic the updates/patches which come with the dlcs are. Small civ changes here and there keep the game fresh and enjoyable. All the best to everyone in the AOE2 community. Keep playing and enjoying this bful game. (Date: 2nd March 2020) We get updates every month now, updates are basically 10% new stuff 30% fixing bugs caused due to new stuff from last update 30% fixing release bugs 10% balancing 20% improving the AI, pathfinding (have seen no real improvements but okay) Every update fixes some bugs and brings in new bugs, and the surprising thing is the total number of bugs keep on increasing! The latest bugs? More overall crashes after the update, Broken Matchmaking - players unable to see multiple basic stuff like 1. Civs in the loading screen (before the start), 2. chat (which also gives various alerts which are now missing), 3. Names of the opponents, etc. (Date: 24th Jan 2020) Its been two months, the developers are still balancing and bug fixing, updates are game breaking, and are being followed by hotfixes. This solidifies my point that the game is not fully functional and should still be in beta. Multiple reports of random disconnects and crashes still exist, I have experienced a few too. The game is open to user made mods, but many of them are not compatible with the game, or worse the compatibility changes with every patch. Game is still in a very crude stage, sadly the answer to "Do you recommend this game?" is still No. (Date: 9th Jan 2020) AOE2DE is more beautiful, has a better resolution, has additional civs and has some good features like zoom that make it really tempting to buy over the AOE2HD or as they call it now AOE2 2013 version. It still lacks optimization, frame rates are still uneven, spectator mode has multiple bugs, units' natural attack reactions are unreliable; but the overall situation is better than how it was at the launch. Still feels like we are progressing through stages of beta, awaiting more optimization updates. Right now I still prefer AOE2HD over this version, but the improvements in the Christmas update are encouraging. (Date: 14th Nov 2019) I love the Age of Empires group of games. Have about 3000+ hrs on all of them combined. The additions they have made to AOE2HD are perfect, and it is totally worth the money. But, the game is highly unoptimized, it feels like I am still beta testing it. The frame rates are not constant, you can lag through one part of the game and breeze through the other. Also I am not sure but I think the game is CPU intensive in a world where people care more about GPUs. But then again, the problems aren't unsolvable, hopefully they get fixed. Till they exist, its gonna be a NO.