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We are excited to announce the next DLC for Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition – Chronicles: Battle for Greece, an immersive narrative expansion that transports players to the world of classical antiquity. Coming November 14th, Chronicles builds upon classic gameplay with a reimagined visual experience and a focus on epic, character-focused storytelling.
The first chapter, Battle for Greece, introduces three new civilizations: Achaemenids, Athenians, and Spartans – in a 21-scenario campaign, brought to life through engaging voice acting, animated cutscenes, and much more!
We have been thrilled to work with CaptureAge to present Battle for Greece, the first installment of Chronicles. This new epic narrative experience is a must-play for strategy lovers and history enthusiasts alike.
Chronicles: Battle for Greece is available for pre-order now on Steam, Microsoft Store, or Xbox! Coming November 14th!
Steam Microsoft Store Xbox
What is Chronicles?
A sharp breeze surges across the Aegean. The dockyards of Athens thrum with activity, the air filled with the acrid smell of pitch, slathered across the hulls of a hundred waiting warships. In the mess halls of Sparta, wolf-eyed warriors slurp bitter black broth, their arms still aching from the day’s exercises. On the shores of the Hellespont, the Great King of Persia watches as a vast host assembles before him, drawn from a hundred different lands. The battle for Greece is about to begin.
Created by CaptureAge, a team of Age of Empires veterans, Chronicles is a series of DLCs set in the ancient world, taking the core gameplay and balance of Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition and then pushing it a step further by adding multiple new features inspired by the time period, along with a complete visual overhaul!
The story of Chronicles begins with Battle for Greece. Spanning over a century of history from the Ionian Revolt, through the Greco-Persian Wars, to the end of the Peloponnesian Wars, the 21-scenario campaign contains some of history’s most famous and consequential battles, including Marathon, Thermopylae, and Salamis. Meet fascinating historical figures such as the ruthless Spartan admiral, Lysander, the wise statesman, Pericles, and the fearless warrior queen, Artemisia!
Included in this DLC
Chronicles will also feature a complete naval overhaul with six types of military ships, new trading options with merchant ships, and a new gold resource which can be gathered at sea: Oysters! Plus, use special civilization mechanics, such as the ability to enact government policies and individually upgrade Town Centers to fine-tune the control over your empire. Innovative gameplay, including a unique naval combat system, and new technologies are all ready for you to explore and enjoy!
- New graphical models: including 55 new land units, 19 new naval units, and 85 new buildings
- A 21-scenario campaign covering over a century of history
- A fresh approach to storytelling with animated cutscenes, new music, and voice acting
- Three ancient civilizations: Achaemenids, Athenians and Spartans (not available in ranked play)
- Overhaul of naval combat: with six military ship types, including ramming and catapult ships
- Unique civilization mechanics: including customizable Town Centers and government policies
- … and much more!
Achaemenids, Athenians, and Spartans NOT Available in Ranked Play
The Achaemenids, Athenians, and Spartans will NOT be available for Ranked Play.
You can read more about this decision below.
At its core, Chronicles is a new series for Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition, dedicated to narrative and historical immersion, primarily with a single-player focus. To build upon this goal and explore additional possibilities, early in development we made the decision that the three new civilizations introduced with Battle for Greece would not be available in ranked gameplay.
Separating the three new civilizations from the standard balance pool has allowed us to develop fun and creative mechanics, a fresh take on the standard technology tree, and overhaul certain parts of the game such as naval gameplay. These options wouldn’t have been possible and would not play in a balanced manner alongside the current Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition civilizations.
We’ve worked with our partners at CaptureAge who have a deep understanding and interest in the competitive scene – they’ve been supporting it since before the Definitive Editions released! We unanimously agreed with them that keeping these fresh and experimental civilizations separate from competitive play is the best option, for both our community members who want a unique and expanded single player experience, and those who enjoy well balanced competitive play.
A Message From CaptureAge
Chronicles is the first full release from CaptureAge! As a development studio, we’ve prided ourselves on providing top-quality spectator software across the Age of Empires franchise. From a small team of fans, CaptureAge has grown into a studio packed with Age of Empires community veterans, as well as AAA talent.
We’re passionate about this franchise, and wanted to create something that the community would love. Inspired by the popular Rome at War mod – whose creators are now part of the CaptureAge team – we chose the rich world of classical antiquity for our setting.
Campaigns have always been central to Age of Empires, and fans of the series continue to hunger for more. We therefore decided to make campaign content central to Chronicles – and we’re approaching campaigns in our own unique way, with a strong narrative focus, a new presentation style, and an exciting variety of gameplay styles. Together, the Chronicles DLCs will tell a unified story spanning the ancient world!
We can’t wait to share more details about Chronicles: Battle for Greece with you over the coming weeks. For all of us at CaptureAge, this project has been a labor of love, and we couldn’t be more excited for you to join us on this fresh, ambitious, creative new adventure.
What’s on the Horizon
Hello Age Community and welcome to the Battle for Greece!
The road to today and the announcement of Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition – Chronicles: Battle for Greece has been a long time coming, and the unlikely path that led us here is worth an explanation. That’s because it’s not just a story about CaptureAge, but also YOU – the Community – and how the passion of players that love Age of Empires can turn into some wild and unlikely adventures.
First let’s talk about CaptureAge. Here at World’s Edge, we started our relationship with CaptureAge several years ago, with a focus on getting their amazing spectator tool (also called CaptureAge) working for AoE II: DE. That tiny project forged some new friendships and confidence, and led to exploring different ways that the CA team might be able to contribute to AoE II: DE outside of what they were already known for. For many years now, they’ve been working rather silently on many small projects within the game, helping to deliver on new features and systems that have been part of the Updates you’ve been receiving over time. It’s been a wonderful collaboration and we’ve been genuinely delighted to watch them grow as a company – talented new people continue to join the CA team, and they’ve been able to express their passion for Age of Empires in new and exciting ways.
But then, as any good story goes, we reached a point of once-upon-a-time when collectively many on the AoE II: DE team took notice of Romae ad Bellum (Rome at War) – a promising mod being developed by a small group of people. Among the many things that caught our attention, they were doing beautiful work with building and unit design, and they were experimenting with gameplay in ways we felt were interesting. Eventually we connected with the Rome at War team to talk about their mod and their creative aspirations, and the vibe was the right one – we liked how they were thinking about AoE II: DE gameplay in a different time period, and it got us thinking about whether or not there was a path to working with them as a content partner. There were big gaps in what they’d be able to take on, but they had the thing that mattered most – a love for Age of Empires and enough passion to push through ambiguity and create something that people were talking about.
So now we have these two teams in the mix, mostly focused on very different things BUT… they both had the same ambition. They both wanted to be developing a true and ambitious content project. And they were both teams that originated in Community, made of people that played AoE II: DE personally, passionately, and daily – and wanted to be doing something interesting and different for the game.
As time went on and conversations continued, what started to emerge was one of those exciting moments where stars align and the opportunity to do something really cool becomes real. With the help of World’s Edge, CaptureAge invited the Rome at War team to join them, and together they became the strongest version of CaptureAge yet – just in time to journey into their first DLC project culminating in today’s surprise for all of you. It was an ambitious and heart-felt effort to launch, because while Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition – Chronicles: Battle for Greece is definitely inspired by previous mod work from the team, this meant getting to work on a completely new DLC experience, authored entirely from scratch and built from the ground up, together with PhD Historians we added to the team and a desire to build a new type of experience players hadn’t quite seen before. They’ll have much more to say about that story in their own words over the weeks and months to come, but it’s worth highlighting here for a very specific reason.
Age of Empires isn’t just a World’s Edge endeavor – it’s something that belongs to all of us, and it’s been as much a part of your life and story as it has been ours. The examples of Forgotten Empires and CaptureAge teams demonstrate that a vibrant path exists, and for those of you interested in making your mark on Age, we’re watching! We’re fans too and excited to see the things you create! From mods, to music, to cosplay, to fan art – all of it makes us smile because we think it’s as cool as you do! When people and teams pop up in our Community that we can find a way to work with, we’re thrilled! Our connection to our Community is what guides the work we do and the choices we make, and whenever we can grow those efforts by inviting our Community to join us in delivering on the future of these games, it’s a fit like no other! That’s a lot of exclamation marks but also a lot of truth. Not every gaming franchise is like this and the Age of Empires Community stands out as a unique and positive place where this many years later people can still find opportunity in the things they love, and we think that’s pretty awesome.
So this is another encouragement for you to dream big and imagine possibilities. To pick up that editor and speak with your mods. Don’t be afraid of failure, don’t be afraid to get it wrong – it’s a supportive Community! People are there to give you feedback and you might even find others to join you in whatever quest you’ve created for yourself. Just go for it! Because you never know what will happen. You might just get spotted by a Dev, who tells a Producer, who tells a Business Manager, who sends an email, which starts a conversation, which leads to a blog, where we get to praise our Community for being full of amazing people that do amazing things. We genuinely feel that way.
Given the focus on Campaign content in Chronicles: Battle for Greece, alongside the fact that we won’t be adding the new Civs (Achaemenids, Athenians, and Spartans) to Ranked, it seems important to mention that this does not signal a departure from the types of DLC we’ve been delivering in the past that have been reliably adding new Civs for competitive play. In the case of Chronicles: Battle for Greece, we really wanted to try some unconventional things with gameplay, play around with the Tech Tree, and try some new things with Naval that weren’t going to harmonize with the balance in Ranked. So we make choices like this in order to (a) make room for that kind of creativity, (b) respect balance in Ranked, and (c) look for diversity in the types of content we can create for you. A little more about this, from a different angle –
What we’ve been doing with DLCs like Animated Profile Icons, Victors and Vanquished, and now Chronicles: Battle for Greece, is a bit of experimenting. The AoE II: DE community is pretty big and spread out. Our most visible cohort tends to be our competitive community, tournament organizers, and streamers, but there’s a rather massive and understated majority of our players that show up week over week and month over month just to enjoy their favorite Campaigns. They love Campaign content exclusively, and they’re playing them over and over again – hard to blame them (that Attila Campaign, amiright???). There’s some Venn diagram overlap where many of you together are enjoying a lot of Skirmish matches, but the point is that it’s a big game with lots to do and therefore we’ve got many different interests to explore and service. It starts to become important for us to look for ways that we can push Campaign content and do new and interesting things, even if it means some variation in how we roll out a DLC (e.g. Civs not going into Ranked). So when we do something different like this, please don’t be alarmed – we’re just a happy tree growing new branches – the ones that have given you shade in times past are still there and we’ve got plenty of surprises waiting for you. Like, a lot. A lot a lot. Seriously. A lot a lot a lot.
More to say about those surprises in the future!
For now, it’s time to settle in for the Grand Campaign as Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition – Chronicles: Battle for Greece presents an ALL-NEW experience, not available in any form anywhere else, crafted with love by CaptureAge, and ready to play in just a few weeks!
Pre-Order Chronicles: Battle for Greece Now!
Conquer the ancient world with the inaugural chapter of Chronicles: Battle for Greece! Claim victory across the entirely new 21 scenarios of the Grand Campaign. Experience new graphical models including 55 new land units, 19 new naval units, and 85 new buildings, and master three new civilizations – Achaemenids, Athenians and Spartans.
Chronicles: Battle for Greece is now available for pre-order on Steam, Microsoft Store, and Xbox, releasing November 14th!
Steam Microsoft Store Xbox