World’s Edge CEO explains the state of development for Age of Empires 4. “Great progress” is being made; is already playable.
Age of Empires 4 never went away. On the occasion of the closing of 2020, Shannon Loftis, head of World’s Edge, explained to his followers the situation of the development of the fourth installment of the legendary strategy series. “We are making great progress in Age of Empires 4. I don’t want you to be envious, but we are playing it every day, both in Washington and Vancouver,” the director explains in an entry on the franchise’s official blog.
Loftis recounts the creative process that an RTS of this size takes: “Developing real-time strategy games is fun. It takes you a while to build the systems separately (artificial intelligence, economics, simulation, rendering, etc.) and then it takes you another time to put them together. But when you do, suddenly you have a game – a game that needs tweaking and debugging – in which you know the core you are going to release. And the best part is that it feels like an Age of Empires delivery. “
Age of Empires 4
2020 has not exactly been an easy road. Given the pandemic we are currently experiencing, the development of the game has been affected. In this case, Loftis emphasizes the “incredible effort” that Relic Entertainment has made during the migration from office work to home, another of the studios responsible for the project. “We modified our processes (through trial and error) to help facilitate production in order to keep the game on track,” he concludes.
The last we heard about the game was during the celebration of X019, the last major face-to-face event held by Microsoft prior to the pandemic. In that context we received the first gameplay trailer, which you can see at this link. Little more than 3 years have passed since we learned of its existence. Will 2021 be the year of the return of Age of Empires through the front door?
Source: Eurogamer (via Age of Empires official website)
