Relic working on Age of Empires 4

https://twitter.com/Ishmae1/status/1139240694847926272
@Ishmae1, 13. jun. 2019
I keep seeing drive-by comments around the net regarding the possibility of micro-transactions in future / upcoming #AgeOfEmpires games.

Let's be clear: that is not the plan.

Posted by u/Tattorack
3 days ago
So I received an Email from the Age of Empires team mostly concerning the closed Steam beta for AoEII DE. But they closed with something interesting:

" We also want to address the War Elephant in the room and acknowledge that we've been a little quiet in the past. Moving forward, we will be changing how we communicate with our valued Insiders – in a big way. Keep your eyes on your inbox for lots more exclusive Age of Empires Insider news, perks, and more!
Stay connect with us on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter as well as check out our brand-new Age of Empires Discord channel here.
Thanks,
The Age of Empires Team"

It could mean nothing or it could mean that we're not gonna have complete silence about Age of Empires projects in the near future. Because let's face it, we've been kept pretty in the dark about any developments.

using technology from AoE4, for example "Relic Link" (anti-cheat-tool, allows player profiles, similar to Battle.net)

*SNIP*
Even today, 20 years later, Age of Empires 2 is still played in multiplayer mode. The HD edition on Steam attracts over 10,000 players every day - a respectable number for a strategy game so old in its core. The Definitive Edition will therefore offer a robust online mode. Forgotten Empires "threw out the old netcode completely".

Players can also look forward to increased stability compared to the Remaster of the first Age of Empires. This was created using UWP technology (Universal Windows Platform, a restrictive runtime environment that does not allow mods, for example). Age of Empires 2: Definitive Edition, on the other hand, relies on Win32 - and also appears on Steam. Thanks to crossplay between the versions for Microsoft Store and Steam, the community is not split.

That's very important to Adam Isgreen and his colleagues - also regarding the next Definitive Edition of Part 3 and Age of Empires 4 developed by Relic. "Age of Empires 2 already uses technology from Age of Empires 4, for example Relic Link. This is a powerful anti-cheat tool and also allows us to give players a uniform community profile for all games. It's similar to Battle.net."

More information about AoE4 cannot be elicited from the Microsoft employee though. Just this much: "We'll talk about Age of Empires 4 later this year." And: "We've set up a completely new internal Microsoft studio to support the other developers working on Age of Empires." Developers like Forgotten Empires.

How was the project born? How do you live the responsibility of being the studio responsible for such an important series for the world of video games?
*SNIP*
Adam Isgreen (google translate):We are the internal studio created by Microsoft specifically for Age of Empires and our task is to start a new era for the franchise. Receiving so much trust from Phil Spencer and all the other heads of the video game division is really fantastic. A good part of the team, among other things, is composed of the original members of Ensemble Studios and in general we are all great lovers of the series and genre:

There's a bit of confusion in here --
Forgotten Empires, the developer working on Age II DE has members of Ensemble working there, not at the new MS Age studio
There's no change to the relationships with FE, Relic, etc. - the Age studio isn't taking over any projects from our development partners
Carry on!

Age of Empires studio (official name hasn't cleared legal yet) | USA | founded in 2019

cartoon_soldier said:
Wololo Studios?

Ishmae1(Adam Isgreen): Nope! But we did consider that one... and over a hundred others. You'd be amazed (or really, not, in this day and age) how hard it is to find a name that some LLC or side business doesn't already use.

Joseph said:
I kinda wish the AoE team had a cool name.

Ishmae1: We do, it just hasn't cleared legal yet. Once that's done and the logo is in place, we'll show it off.

I'm looking to add to my community team at Relic Entertainment! If you know of any talented community managers and/or community-focused people that would be great for the role, please let me know! #gamedevelopment

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Jump back to quoted post22 Aug 2019, 01:00 AMnigo

Age of Empires IV Gameplay trailer to be shown at XO19, November 14th

https://www.gamestar.de/artikel/age-of-empires-4-endlich-gameplay,3348090.html

”Listen, our next big beat is X019. I’d suggest that people watch that. It’s also on November 14th. It’s the day Age of Empires 2: Definitive Edition launches.”
Aaron Greenberg

https://twitter.com/AgeOfEmpires/status/1164300112937586689
AgeOfEmpires
@AgeOfEmpires
During an interview with MAX, Aaron Greenberg slipped in some exciting news about XO19! "Our Audience...hoped for news on #AoE4.. Can you give them hope?" "...Our next big beat is X019. I’d suggest that people watch that."

https://www.pcgamesinsider.biz/news/69560/gamescom-2019-microsofts-new-age-of-empires-arm-isnt-a-developer-firm-overseeing-other-studios-working-on-ip/
The newly-announced Age of Empires studio headed up by Shannon Loftis at Microsoft isn't directly making games, but instead is more of a production outfit overseeing other studios' work on the IP.

That's according to Microsoft creative director Adam Isgreen, who told PCGamesInsider.biz that the company's responsibility is to make sure that Age of Empire games from other studios are going in the right direction.

Microsoft has worked with developer Forgotten Empires for the Definitive Edition of Age of Empires - which was released in 2018 - and the modern update of its sequel that's launching in November. Isgreen says that Australia's Tantalus Media is working on Age of Empires III Definitive Edition, too.

That's on top of the Big M bringing in Sega-owned Relic Entertainment on-board to make Age of Empires 4.

The new Age of Empires venture was announced at E3 2019 alongside Microsoft's purchase of adventure game specialist Double Fine.

"We do have an internal team but we're really providing oversight to our wonderful development partners - our team at Forgotten Empires that made Age of Empires Definitive Edition and is working on Age of Empires II - Definitive Edition, but we also have a group in Australia - Tantalus Media - that's working on Age of Empires III," Isgreen explained.

"We have Relic up in Vancouver. But they're also helping each other out with all the games, too. Our role at Microsoft is to enable these great developers to make Age products and to be the overseers and the ones making sure that we're on-message and on-brand for delivering what we believe to be great Age of Empires experiences. They're accessible, for all ages and you may learn something about history whether you want to or not. That kind of approach, a game that's accessible that is really meant for a large audience, across the world. We have a wonderful userbase from all across the globe that plays Age of Empires games every month and we want to make sure we can bring everybody in, not just from specific cultures."

https://www.windowscentral.com/age-empires-2-may-hit-xbox-if-microsoft-can-figure-out-controls
According to a report by Twinfinite, Age of Empires 2 may be coming to Xbox down the line. At Gamescom 2019, the team managed to speak with the game's Creative Director Adam Isgreen. When asked about whether the title could come to consoles, he said the following.

So, the plan is that I want to make the best PC real-time strategy game possible first. Now there's mouse and keyboard support on Xbox, but so many people don't have mouse and keyboard that they can plug in. So, I think the challenge, and what I want to fool around with afterwards, is... once we get this done, we're gonna look at what we can do for console controls, like building a console control scheme specifically for Age of Empires. We don't have anything to announce about console right now, but we're going to go try to figure it out.

Jump back to quoted post27 Aug 2019, 06:23 AMSpanky

Relic said back in the day that they cracked the RTS controls on console problem, no?

*SNIP*
Another interesting tidbit of information that's been hinted at for some time is that all new Xbox titles will come to GamePass on PC. Greenberg said while speaking to GameStar about digital games distribution and subscription models like GamePass:

We're going to bring all of our titles when they launch into GamePass on PC, included in the service. We've got a lot of great third-party support as well, and we know a lot of people both play on the PC and on console.

That's great, so we have options for them but even just as a dedicated PC gamer, we're working with a lot of the big PC publishers to bring their titles and them reach a broader audience as well ... so the key there is to overdeliver on value but consumers obviously still have choice if they want to subscribe or buy.

Suffice it to say, that's a pretty clear indication that Age of Empires 4 will be included in GamePass at launch, whenever that may be. As of this writing, there is still no release window for the game. However, that may very well change at XO19 in a little less than three months.

The new Xbox podcast made by resetera members Kaironaut Shpeshal Ed FUNKNOWN iXi and Sikamikanico had a special guest. They've recorded a three hour podcast with the creative director at Xbox Game Studios who has worked on games like Red Alert, Killer Instinct and Age of Empires: Definitive Edition.

During the podcast they talk Monty Python, Ori, Killer Instinct, Red Alert and Age of Empires. I've tried to make some timestamps:
3:30 - Start of Adam's career
20:00 - Red Alert (Tanya, the Einstein scenes and more)
25:00 - Killer Instinct (Double Helix, Iron Galaxy, netcode of fighting games, Smash & Banjo)
34:50 - Biggest pet peeve game design principle
39:45 - Ori and Moon Studios
1:01:00 - Age of Empires
1:12:10 - Xbox and Age of Empires?
1:12:12 - Controllers
1:19:00 - Xbox and Age of Empires again
1:24:00 - Gears 5
1:28:20 - Xbox Game Studios - length of game
1:42:50 - Transparency in gaming industry, cost of making games

This Is what he said during Q&A session (by reddit source)

Essentially Adam Isgreen (the creative director of AOE franchise) was asked about AOE4 and gave couple of vague high level answers.

He didn't confirm that they will reveal it at XO19, instead went along with the "wink wink nudge nudge" method that we got from Gamescom.

About development, he said that everyone (in-house supervising studio at MS, Relic, FE, and Tantalus in Australia) takes it super seriously to develop the games (3 DEs + AOE4). They want to preserve and stay true to that feeling which makes AOE what it is.

Coming from the background of developing C&C and Red Alert franchise, Isgreen mentioned about bringing mechanics and ideas from other RTS games to AOE, for example, right-click-and-drag map scrolling. He could not withstand the archaic method of moving the mouse to the edge of the screen. According to him, the new scrolling mechanics is in all the DEs, but not AOE4 yet which frustrates (jokingly) him a lot.

There's also mentioning of some innovations to spice up some mundane and boring part of the genre. One example he talked about is how the resource gathering is usually very boring, but in Red Alert 2 they made it more interesting by introducing different harvesting trucks to different factions (teleporting Allies, armored Soviet). Relic and he have had a lot of meetings to discuss what kind of ideas and innovations are worth the effort and budget to put in the game. They don't want to "bring change for changes' sake".

All 4 games had pre-alpha (maybe beta, I forgot the terminology he used) playtesting already. For AOE4, some die-hard fans of the old games were quite shocked and "intense" to changes made to AOE4 (sounds like AOE4 will be kind of revolutionary to the franchise). He used the analogy of "7 stages of grief" (I believe it should be 5 stages but whatever) saying that those fans became softer and more welcoming to the changes later on.

To summarise, he was extremely evasive on AOE4 saying that he didn't want to leak anything about the game (time setting, new mechanics etc.). But one thing is quite obvious TO ME: AOE4 will be a quite different game. Hopefully we can soon find out whether it can capture the magic of previous games or not at XO19.

rutiretan
Essentially Adam Isgreen (the creative director of AOE franchise) was asked about AOE4 and gave couple of vague high level answers.

He didn't confirm that they will reveal it at XO19, instead went along with the "wink wink nudge nudge" method that we got from Gamescom.

About development, he said that everyone (in-house supervising studio at MS, Relic, FE, and Tantalus in Australia) takes it super seriously to develop the games (3 DEs + AOE4). They want to preserve and stay true to that feeling which makes AOE what it is.

Coming from the background of developing C&C and Red Alert franchise, Isgreen mentioned about bringing mechanics and ideas from other RTS games to AOE, for example, right-click-and-drag map scrolling. He could not withstand the archaic method of moving the mouse to the edge of the screen. According to him, the new scrolling mechanics is in all the DEs, but not AOE4 yet which frustrates (jokingly) him a lot.

There's also mentioning of some innovations to spice up some mundane and boring part of the genre. One example he talked about is how the resource gathering is usually very boring, but in Red Alert 2 they made it more interesting by introducing different harvesting trucks to different factions (teleporting Allies, armored Soviet). Relic and he have had a lot of meetings to discuss what kind of ideas and innovations are worth the effort and budget to put in the game. They don't want to "bring change for changes' sake".

All 4 games had pre-alpha (maybe beta, I forgot the terminology he used) playtesting already. For AOE4, some die-hard fans of the old games were quite shocked and "intense" to changes made to AOE4 (sounds like AOE4 will be kind of revolutionary to the franchise). He used the analogy of "7 stages of grief" (I believe it should be 5 stages but whatever) saying that those fans became softer and more welcoming to the changes later on.

To summarise, he was extremely evasive on AOE4 saying that he didn't want to leak anything about the game (time setting, new mechanics etc.). But one thing is quite obvious TO ME: AOE4 will be a quite different game. Hopefully we can soon find out whether it can capture the magic of previous games or not at XO19.

Edit: To the folks worrying about that drastic changes will be made to resource gathering, please calm down I didn't do Isgreen enough justice. This is just one example he gave using Red Alert 2 since he cannot leak anything about AOE4, when talking about new ideas in the general RTS genre. It's definitely not the case that the same will happen in AOE4. Besides, we had asymmetric villagers in AOM and AOE3 before and I personally find them to be pretty good.

One more thing I forgot to mention is that when talking about creative freedom, Isgreen said that when they did the campaign/story for AOE4, they dug into historical events and found out that some are very reminiscent of game modes. He said something along the line that he's surprised nobody has made these events into a game yet. Again, he didn't say what time period the game is set in. But I think we can perhaps deduce a little:

1. It's not set in the future.

2. It has historical events that are not too familiar to Americans. So probably other continents.

3. The events surprised them when they were doing research. So probably not a recent time period as recent history should be more well-documented and well-known.

*SNIP*
On the official website of Age of Empires, the countdown to the start of the „next adventure” with the strategy game series has begun. It will end on the day of the start of the X019 event at which Age of Empires IV is to be shown.
But how can you be sure that this is about the presentation of the fourth game from the series? After all, it could be associated with Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition, which is due to debut on November 14. The point is that on the official website of the series there is a separate countdown to the release of AoE II, ending just before the start of Xbox Inside. Furthermore, the mention of the "next adventure" seems to indicate a new installment of the series. It's not really about a new undisclosed production, either. In June, Adam Isgreen (the creative director of the franchise) made it clear that the priorities are to refresh the original trilogy and the fourth installment of the series. Although this was true for the possible return of Age of Mythology, in this context it seems doubtful that developers could work on a completely new project.

RadiatingBlade
Just uploaded to Imgur. Look in the general location of the mill and you can see the blades rotating.