Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition
Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition
Game
Game2019
Age of Empires: Definitive Edition
Developer World's Edge, Forgotten Empires, Tantalus
Age of Empires is a 1997 real-time strategy video game based on the ancient world, developed by Ensemble Studios and published by Microsoft, and the first game in the Age of Empires series. The game uses the Genie Engine, a 2D sprite-based game engine. The game allows the user to act as the leader of an ancient civilization by advancing it through four ages (the Stone, Tool, Bronze, and Iron Ages), gaining access to… From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
344 reactions from 4 sources (Steam reviews, Bluesky, Lemmy, Mastodon) · newest Nov 5, 2026 · last updated Nov 5, 2026 · How this works
Audience score
75
LovedLoved
154 positive · 51 negative
95% range 69–81%
| Source | + | − | = |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steam reviews | 154 | 51 | 0 |
| Bluesky * | 24 | 1 | 72 |
| Lemmy * | 1 | 1 | 20 |
| Mastodon * | 2 | 0 | 18 |
* shown, not counted in the score (label accuracy below our 85% bar or not yet audited).
Steam's own rating
Very Positive
5,546 of 6,688 reviews positive (all languages, per Valve)
What players are saying
75% recommend · 140 yes, 46 no
Counted from the reviewers’ own thumbs up/down on the 186 English Steam reviews we collected, not by the AI. Valve’s all-language rating: Very Positive (13,245 of 15,717 positive).
Players praise the remastered graphics and soundtrack for enhancing the classic experience. [1][2][3] Some reviewers find the AI too aggressive and the game frustratingly difficult, even on easy. [4][5][6] A few players criticize the pathfinding and UI as outdated or poorly implemented. [7][8]
Liked
Representative posts
- [5]
I bought this new version because I felt nostalgic and wanted to play AoE again, but this is way too difficult. Even the easy difficulty is often too hard and there are some campaigns that are extremely frustrating to win. It's true I'm not an expert and talented player, but I played the original game in the past as a child/teen and I remember it being challenging but still enjoyable. Now, it's a crazy anxious run …
- [14]
🏺⚔️ Age of Empires: Definitive Edition — The Glow-Up I Didn’t Know I Needed ⚔️🏺 I played the original Age of Empires back in the good ol’ days on Windows 95, when dinosaurs roamed the earth and we all pretended our giant beige PCs were “fast.” I even played multiplayer over a 56k baud modem on a phone line, which meant every match started with that iconic dial-up screech that sounded like R2-D2 stepping on a LEGO. …
- [15]
If you play RTS games to "feel" the weight of history rather than just to click fast, this is a must-play. It strips away the complexity of modern titles to focus on the core appeal: building a legacy from the dust. It’s a slow, rhythmic, and deeply nostalgic celebration of the cultures that started it all. I believe it isn’t just a game about war; it’s a game about the persistence of culture and the rise of …
- [3]
If you grew up in the late 90s, this game was probably your entire childhood. Age of Empires: Definitive Edition is exactly how you remember the original game looking in your head, brought to life in gorgeous 4K. The remastered orchestral soundtrack is absolutely phenomenal, and the quality-of-life updates (like finally having attack-move and a higher population cap) make the classic rock-paper-scissors RTS combat …
- [1]
It's a timeless classic that keeps up extremely well up to this day! Reading negative comments mentioning "horrible" pathfinding and units blocking each other... Guys, it's a mechanic.. instead of whining you should exploit those things to your advantage. The grafical update is very welcome and I cant remember the last time 70h felt so short. The campaign is very fun and I also had a blast playing around in customs …
Summarised from 34 of the 289 public posts collected about this game; every point cites the posts behind it ([n] opens the post) and the split is counted from the posts’ own ratings. Updated Oct 10, 2026. How summaries are made
RottenBot@rottenbot · automated account
75% of the 186 Steam reviewers we collected recommend Age of Empires: Definitive Edition. The complaint that keeps coming up: aI is overly aggressive and makes the game too hard. Deal-breaker or nitpick?
Critics, per Wikipedia
In the United States, Age of Empires debuted at #7 on PC Data's computer game sales rankings for October 1997. It secured places eighth and 13th the following two months, respectively. By the end of 1997, Age of Empires totaled sales in the country above 178,000 units, for revenues in excess of $8 million. This performance made it the United States' most successful real-time strategy game during late 1997: a writer for PC Gamer US noted that its sales surpassed the combined totals of rivals Total Annihilation and Dark Reign over the same period, and were over four times greater than those of Myth: The Fallen Lords. Age of Empires was also successful worldwide, according to Microsoft. It was…
From the “Reception” section of Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Critic context only — not part of the audience score.
Reactions
60 of 344 · most liked firstHe said that chess - classic, sophisticated, ancient chess - was a boring easy game because it doesn’t have a “fog of war” like Age of Empires 2 lol
neutral · AI labelView post →Love that anyone who plays a strategy game called "CIVILIZATION", "AGE OF EMPIRES", "CRUSADER KINGS" etc is a gentle soft-left liberal internationalist nerd, and anyone who plays one called "MAGIC GIRLS GO!! KIRAKIRA PINK HARMONY" is a full-on Nazi
neutral · AI labelView post →This SMU-FSU game is incredible there's a new piece of technology introduced every 5 minutes like it's Age of Empires
neutral · AI labelView post →If AI is conscious, then so is Age of Empires II Here's how someone built the fundamentals of an LLM in the classic video game, breaking down the whole 'are LLMs conscious' debate Watch and subscribe here for more every week: www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlWJ...
neutral · AI labelView post →If AI is sentient, then so is Age of Empires 2. A Microsoft AI researcher built a basic neural network within the video game using digital goats to prove his point. Point is to show "sometimes the claims we make with regards to LLM capabilities are too strong." www.404media.co/if-ai-is-sen...
neutral · AI labelView post →If you think chatbots can have feelings and can be sentient, let us take you through the work of a Microsoft AI researcher who used the real time strategy game Age of Empires II to build a basic neural network using digital goats to prove that "we anthropomorphise too readily."
neutral · AI labelView post →Donald Trump Reverses All Tariffs After Playing Age of Empires IV on Xbox Game Pass hard-drive.net/hd/video-gam...
neutral · AI labelView post →I miss the “shameless IP reskin of seemingly unrelated game” type of video games which weren’t pay to win phone slop or whatever like that time they decided Age of Empires 2 was the ideal skeleton for a Star Wars game.
neutral · AI labelView post →Pixel mockup of Age of Empires 2 for the GBC. One of my favorite things to do is try and imagine how a game would be ported to much, much less powerful and capable hardware. I have to imagine AOE with 2 buttons and a Dpad would play like trash but It could look pretty ok I think . #pixelart
neutral · AI labelView post →This is hilariously/depressingly true so very, very often. Studios running on big investment money can't afford to keep a 3v3 multiplayer game going, but fans now run Age Of Empires Online (now on its second or third community-made expansion) on a smattering of Patreon donations a month.
neutral · AI labelView post →Hi! I’m Nick, indie #gamedev #godot. Follow for progress of my work, experiments as well as thoughts on what makes games special. My favs: 🛣️ Journey ⚔️ Dark Souls 🪐 Outer Wilds ⚡ Hades 👽 Half Life 🔥 Firewatch 🏗️ Age of Empires 2 🎾 Mario Tennis (Game Boy Colour) 💣 Zelda ⛰️Celeste 😇 Halo 2&3
neutral · AI labelView post →Classic RTS game in which you build a civilisation, develop your economy and army to conquer your opponents in historical campaigns and battles I know this game has legendary status, but I've never played it. I haven't played any of the parts before the remaster, so I won't compare it (my childhood game from the same company is Age of Mythology (actually, I played the remastered part and it turned out great). I was disappointed with this game. Why? I will describe this in the pros and cons…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Congratulations to the entire Age of Empires team for Age of Mythology: Retold being nominated for Best Sim/Strategy Game of the Year! 💚🤩 www.thegameawards.com/nominees/bes...
neutral · AI labelView post →My first games were Worms, Creatures and Age of Empires. My first PC game was Max Payne. I didn't touch a Nintendo until Wii sports.
neutral · AI labelView post →i think the best cheat code in a game is the one in Age of Empires that gives you a sports car with a rocket launcher on it because when you went to school and told the other kids you sounded exactly like that one lying kid who always said shit like that. but it was REAL
neutral · AI labelView post →[...] along with some generic images of monsters and shit, and only like 3 seconds of a hint at its crafting (which is what they had the presenter lead with). Then Age of Empires 4 follows it with HEY HERE'S GAMEPLAY, HERES WHAT IT LOOKS LIKE, CHECK IT OUT and I'm like hell yeah that's the game
neutral · AI labelView post →Real-Time Strategy (RTS). Hey there! Are you a fan of classic, intense and borderline overwhelming **real-time strategy games** like StarCraft or Age of Empires? If so, then welcome to [@[email protected]](/c/[email protected]), a brand new fediverse community for fans of the real-time strategy (RTS) game genre! I hope this will be a great place on the fediverse to talk about all things RTS games--be it news, strategy, memes, game design, modding, reverse engineering, or what have you. What's more, in…
neutral · AI labelView post →I’ve been grinding tf outta Age of Empires 2 and I’m currently at 206/302 achievements unlocked. 😵💫 I’ve never had a game have this many before. Been working on this since July!
positive · AI labelView post →The Age of Empires tech tree from October 1995, two years before the game came out and many months before Rick Goodman thought to divide progress into "ages" of history. Despite its complexity, this "Version 13" is actually much simpler than his 12 prior attempts to devise an R&D progression system.
neutral · AI labelView post →Age of Empires studio World's Edge next game has been cancelled, nearly 50% of staff laid off before Xbox placed it under Activision. "[...]we had some great plans for what's next", said creative director Adam Isgreen. ➡️ www.ign.com/articles/mic...
neutral · AI labelView post →Age of Empires studio World's Edge reportedly lose nearly half their staff and a new game project in mass Xbox layoffs. Crossposted from [https://fedia.io/m/rts/t/4397419](https://fedia.io/m/rts/t/4397419) > > > > > > > "Just under half" of Age of Empires studio World’s Edge have reportedly been laid off, and their next project cancelled, as part of Xbox’s mass redundancies. > > > > > >
neutral · AI labelView post →Age of Empires is a delightfully slow game.
positive · AI labelView post →if you, as a gamer, are buying new games in 2025 you should ask yourself why you have allowed your faith in the only game (Age of Empires II) to falter
positive · AI labelView post →It's like the only textbook you used to learn history was the game manual for Age of Empires
neutral · AI labelView post →I think my favorite game is easily Age of Empires II, and it fundamentally sparked so much of my interest in history as a young kid.
positive · AI labelView post →I’m quoted in this lovely, brief article Age of Empires at 25: the strategy game that inspired a generation of historians www.theguardian.com/games/2024/o...
neutral · AI labelView post →Age of Empires 2 is one of the most aesthetically pleasing game. =)
positive · AI labelView post →Age of Empires IV sold over 4 Million copies. Also available with Xbox Game Pass. via @bogorad222
neutral · AI labelView post →Xbox Game Studios | Steam Humble Bundle is now available. Broken Age Sunset Overdrive Quantum Break Battletoads Ori and the Will of the Wisps Wasteland 3 Age of Empires: Definitive Edition As Dusk Falls Great selection for $10. www.humblebundle.com/games/xbox-g...
neutral · AI labelView post →What's next for me? I'm excited to say I'll be returning to Xbox Game Studios to work on Age of Empires.
neutral · AI labelView post →Random keys Uplay: Ghost Recon Phantoms starter pack + avatar. Just drop a comment and I will send you the key. Some of the keys might be used I lost track of them, and now I'm doing deep cleaning (I have more keys that's questionable state I will post those in a later post): STEAM: ~~Hello Neighbor Hide and Seek~~ ~~Psychonauts~~ ~~DLC: Age of Empires II HD Edition: The Forgotten Expansion~~ Might be used steam keys: ~~Kitaria Fables~~ ~~Serin Fate~~ ~~Stranded…
neutral · AI labelView post →I bought this new version because I felt nostalgic and wanted to play AoE again, but this is way too difficult. Even the easy difficulty is often too hard and there are some campaigns that are extremely frustrating to win. It's true I'm not an expert and talented player, but I played the original game in the past as a child/teen and I remember it being challenging but still enjoyable. Now, it's a crazy anxious run against an AI that's too quick at developing, attacking and wiping out my…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →My first Age of Empires event, the epic 2026 Red Bull Wololo Londinium in - of all places - the Royal Albert Hall! How strange to see the game I loved as a kid played in such a historic venue. Loved getting swept up in the passion of the 3000 Age of Empires fans in attendance! [Press|Invite]
neutral · AI labelView post →The first PC game I ever played. Thanks Grandpa for sitting me down and teaching me the ropes. I will always cherish the memories of playing this with you
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →We have learned how to defend democracy now against foreign interference by countries playacting Age of Empires. Now they will find that it is a game that two can play.
neutral · AI labelView post →That talk of the Dragon's Dogma Online revival reminded of of the AMAZING work that the Age Of Empires Online community have done restoring and now WILDLY expanding that game. forums.projectceleste.com They've added two whole new civs now, and last month dropped a big campaign expansion for India.
positive · AI labelView post →Age of Empires studio World's Edge reportedly lose nearly half their staff and a new game project in mass Xbox layoffs. "Just under half" of Age of Empires studio World’s Edge have reportedly been laid off, and their next project cancelled, as part of Xbox’s mass redundancies.
neutral · AI labelView post →I don't really play RTS games anymore, but that Game of Thrones one looks... not bad? Very Age of Empires
neutral · AI labelView post →Microsoft is surprise releasing Age of Empires IV on Xbox and Xbox Game Pass today. It's available for Xbox Series S / X and Xbox One consoles. Details here: www.theverge.com/2023/8/22/23...
neutral · AI labelView post →Played the best game of Age of Empires 2. 4v4 perfectly balanced match that lasted 1 hour, and we just barely won. It is a thing of beauty.
positive · AI labelView post →Semi-related, this is why games can produce amazing things like the six and a half hour PvP game of Age of Empires 2 starring Teutonic Healing Fortress youtu.be/aKOTVn5eDZs
neutral · AI labelView post →Ok actual off the top of my head attempt: Movies stunts and effects Halo 2 Spore galactic adventures Ace combat 7 skies unknown Morrowind Fable the lost chapters Mate Nui online game Europa Universallis III Age of Empires 2
neutral · AI labelView post →Age of Empires 2 isn't going anywhere. The Age team just shared a "legendarily long" list of patch notes with fixes and completely new content. DETAILS: www.windowscentral.com/gaming/age-o... 🏰
neutral · AI labelView post →When I'm not too busy working on all things Age of Empires #gamedev, I'm developing my own indie game Elaborate Lands: store.steampowered.com/app/1334280/...
neutral · AI labelView post →It is always worth remembering that if you think ChatGPT is technologically impressive, then so is the "AI" installed in every single Age of Empires game.
neutral · AI labelView post →• Game Pass Day One: Revenge of the Savage Planet • Game Pass Day One: to a T • Game Pass Day One: Spray Paint Simulator • Game Pass: DREDGE • Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition on PS5
neutral · AI labelView post →"Ageplay" is a special codeword developed amongst the enthusiasts of the real-time strategy video game series Age of Empires. It means "let us play Age of Empires together, my friend".
neutral · AI labelView post →This week, Len and DM joined by the current Age of Empires II world champion, Hera, to discuss the state of the game in 2026, playing esports at the top level, and the ongoing King's Gauntlet invitational streamer tournament. www.idlethumbs.net/3ma/episodes...
neutral · AI labelView post →1. And ultimately, I did think about Age of Empires II, but only so I could remember how much worse it is than the obvious best game of 1999, Star Wars Episode I: The Gungan Frontier @batariangal.eurosky.social
neutral · AI labelView post →Age of Empires IV: Anniversary Edition adds a Controller UI on PC https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2026/06/age-of-empires-iv-anniversary-edition-adds-a-controller-ui-on-pc/ #AgeofEmpires #Gaming #RTS #SteamDeck #Linux
neutral · AI labelView post →I expected a lot more from this release... The unit pathfinding is disgusting and it's disappointing to see a classic game that I grew up with receive so little attention and care other than the graphics overhaul. I hate the soulless UI btw. This game has so much potential but after playing AoE2: DE, it feels like a nightmare. I understand that the developers probably wanted to preserve the original experience but I think they could have implemented some of the QOL improvements from AoE2: DE…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →🏺⚔️ Age of Empires: Definitive Edition — The Glow-Up I Didn’t Know I Needed ⚔️🏺 I played the original Age of Empires back in the good ol’ days on Windows 95, when dinosaurs roamed the earth and we all pretended our giant beige PCs were “fast.” I even played multiplayer over a 56k baud modem on a phone line, which meant every match started with that iconic dial-up screech that sounded like R2-D2 stepping on a LEGO. Fast forward to the next century, and Definitive Edition comes out.…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →AOE 3 has surprisingly woke politics for an aughts-era game called "Age of Empires 3" The 2006 expansion involves you leading an Indigenous revolt to kill Custer, and the 2007 one involves you fighting against the British in the First War of Independence
neutral · AI labelView post →I played Age of Empires as a kid, and this is the worst remaster of a classic ga...*wololo* I love this game, 10/10 would recommend.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →You will like my indie game if you enjoyed: -Pikmin2. -Overcooked -Unrailed! -Age of Empires #indiegame #gamedev #indiegamedev #JellyTroops
neutral · AI labelView post →A new update for Age of Empires IV is now available. • New game mode: Chart a Course • Balance & Bugfixes • Civilization-Specific Changes www.ageofempires.com/news/age-of-...
neutral · AI labelView post →Let's normalize releasing new DLC for ancient RTS games. Age of Empires and Blizzard's RTS offer a playbook for how to keep the nostalgia fires burning.
neutral · AI labelView post →NEW: A security vulnerability in the remastered version of the classic 25-year-old war strategy game Age of Empires II allowed hackers to take over victims' computers with just a malicious game invite. techcrunch.com/2026/07/15/m...
neutral · AI labelView post →Very little chance of having casual fun with this. I purchased this for a little bit of nostalgia and wanted to have a RTS fun building bases, playing with tech trees, finding out about units (again), building the armies I fancied. So I did what I often do with RTS and stared the campaign on easy. It's a non stop grind fest against a relentless AI. This is NOTHING like the original game (which was, perhaps, too easy). All I've done in the early stages is try to stay alive. They come at you…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →This wanker just snapped out of a k-hole and thinks he's in an Age of Empires game.
neutral · AI labelView post →
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