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Age of Empires
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| 1s | [XBOX WHOOSH] |
|---|---|
| 8s | >> Welcome to World's Edge, home to the beloved Age of Empires franchise. |
| 12s | We've been on a journey to continue the legacy of |
| 14s | creating world-class Real-Time Strategy games that started |
| 17s | over 25 years ago. |
| 18s | >> That legacy is all thanks to you, the fans. |
| 21s | >> You inspire us to develop new ideas and evolve our games. |
| 25s | >> In 2021 we partnered with the award-winning studio |
| 27s | Relic Entertainment, to push the franchise into a new era |
| 31s | with our latest title, Age of Empires IV. |
| 33s | >> It was a global event that heralded a new chapter of storytelling and strategy. |
| 37s | >> Age of Empires IV humanizes the compelling stories from that historical |
| 42s | time and presents a new perspective through engaging gameplay. |
| 46s | >> It challenges you to make history your story. |
| 48s | >> And what better way to do that than with a trebuchet? |
| 51s | [WHOOSH] |
| 52s | >> Did you hear that whoosh? |
| 54s | >> In the first year of Age of Empires IV |
| 56s | we added new civilizations, new seasons, and features that |
| 60s | fans were very excited about. |
| 62s | >>But there was always something else that fans wanted. |
| 65s | >> We kept hearing the same thing over and over. |
| 67s | >> "When are you bringing it to Xbox?" |
| 70s | >>We're so excited that, finally, all the content in |
| 72s | in Age of Empires IV is now available on the Xbox consoles. |
| 75s | >> But figuring out how to make it for a console audience |
| 78s | was easier said than done. |
| 84s | >> It was impossible to go to any social media platform where the |
| 87s | Age of Empires account was posting and not see a comment underneath |
| 92s | saying "When is it coming to Xbox?" |
| 93s | >> We knew it was important, especially from the perspective of |
| 96s | being able to bring RTS and Age to as many people as possible. |
| 100s | >> We had been talking about it for a long, long time, but it |
| 103s | always came back down to that key factor of |
| 106s | getting RTS from PC and mouse onto a controller. |
| 111s | You get the defensive stance like, "You can't do this!" |
| 114s | Well, why do you feel that way? "Well, I'm gonna have to move |
| 117s | a fake mouse around." OK, we're not doing that. |
| 119s | A controller is a drive mechanism. You're driving a character, |
| 122s | you're driving a viewpoint. |
| 124s | You are driving something through an environment. |
| 127s | How do we make that work? How do we find a solution? |
| 129s | We have these ideas, but we can't build the game internally. |
| 131s | We're only like- we're not a huge RTS studio. |
| 134s | But we'd love to go look for partners. |
| 136s | And the first team on our list that we wanted to talk to |
| 138s | was Relic Entertainment about doing Age of Empires IV. |
| 140s | >> Relic has been making RTS games for 25 years and Age of Empires |
| 145s | has always been a reference point. |
| 147s | >> It's truly is a global effort between so many different teams. |
| 150s | Climax, Forgotten Empires, Relic, and World's Edge. |
| 153s | >> World's Edge brought in Climax Studios in the UK, |
| 157s | who had a background in console games. |
| 160s | >> Climax Studios is a real powerhouse when it comes to |
| 163s | user interface elements. |
| 165s | >> And we felt that they could bring a unique perspective |
| 168s | to building out the control scheme. |
| 170s | >> There was a port once upon a time. In 2001. |
| 173s | I played it and I hated it. I hated everything about it. |
| 175s | So, we have a history, even within our own franchise, |
| 178s | how not to do a port. |
| 180s | >> If we were forced to port it, we probably never |
| 182s | would have done it. |
| 183s | >> Our challenge was we're bringing in Age IV, which has |
| 186s | some extra complexities over Age II. |
| 189s | How are we going to make that work? |
| 191s | What we found is we could actually use that framework |
| 194s | to bring the game into it's own. |
| 197s | >> This game is basically a redesign from the ground, up. |
| 201s | >> Age of Empires IV is a different engine. |
| 203s | It wasn't just a case of doing what Age II did. We had to |
| 207s | build it all from the ground, up. |
| 209s | >> You have players sitting in a living room, away from |
| 212s | the TV. We have to reconsider all the UI menus and all |
| 216s | the in-game HUDs to make sure they are as |
| 219s | legible, as high contrast as possible. |
| 221s | >> The whole development team knew that micro-managing |
| 225s | individual villagers was going to be difficult on console. |
| 230s | >> We have introduced a lot of automation systems. |
| 233s | >> All of us as game designers and game creators are always |
| 235s | seeking that next thing. Like, how do we evolve the experience? |
| 238s | How do we move it forward? |
| 240s | >> There are two that really stand out. |
| 241s | The first one is called the "Villager Priority System". |
| 244s | >> The Villager Priority System is something we came up with |
| 246s | in Age II because we were after that idea of, like, "OK, how do we |
| 249s | stop the console player from having to do this insane amount of |
| 253s | micro-management of their villagers?" |
| 255s | Based on a pie chart, you can say 50% of my people are |
| 258s | going to go work on wood. And 25% are going to work |
| 262s | on food, and the rest are going to go work on gold. |
| 264s | And they'll just start working on them. |
| 266s | Now, if you want to change, we've added all these cool |
| 268s | settings for mid-game, early-game, Wood Rush... |
| 271s | >> ...that were designed by our pro players. |
| 273s | So these presets are not just something that were slapped together. |
| 276s | >> Or you can turn it off and do everything manually. |
| 277s | It's up to you. |
| 278s | >> We also have the "Site Menu System". |
| 281s | >> It allows you to quickly issue a command contextually on the ground. |
| 284s | >> It's context sensitive. So it'll bring up the right |
| 287s | structure that you can build at that spot. |
| 289s | In Age you were always relocated to having to select a villager, |
| 292s | bring up the build menu, click the item that you want, |
| 294s | and then drop that build foundation on the battlefield. |
| 297s | Now, with the SMS, you don't have to do that anymore. |
| 299s | You can literally pan the camera over to a spot, |
| 301s | bring up your production radial, drop a build foundation there, |
| 304s | and a villager will automatically be selected to start |
| 307s | the build process on that particular foundation. |
| 311s | >> The magic to the radial menu is that it allows you to do |
| 315s | many things at the same time. |
| 317s | With the console version of Age of Empires IV, |
| 319s | we also added a new "Find Menu" feature. |
| 322s | This is a unique radial menu that allows you to quickly |
| 326s | find and locate units or buildings or a collection of buildings |
| 330s | in the midst of battle. |
| 331s | >> Those were the primary things. The minute we had them working |
| 335s | we were like "Those are in the Age IV console." |
| 336s | >> And we often joke between the designers that |
| 339s | some of us even prefer to play on the controller now, because |
| 343s | it is so good. |
| 345s | >> This was something bigger than a port. This was something |
| 347s | that we had to approach the way that one would approach |
| 351s | starting out a project from scratch. |
| 352s | >> Age of Empires IV on controller is a new experience. |
| 356s | Because of that we knew we needed to design a new entry point. |
| 360s | >> When we're making tutorials one of the things that we always |
| 362s | try to do is figure out a way to make them not "Now do this. |
| 365s | Now click on this." How do we build it into the experience? |
| 368s | [GAME NARRATOR] He first needed to get a lay of the land. |
| 371s | >> The "Rise of King" tutorial is |
| 373s | a completely new story within Age of Empires IV. |
| 377s | >> For a whole new audience we wanted to bring them |
| 380s | through an experience that was a great storytelling experience... |
| 384s | [GAME NARRATOR] A collection of large rocks caught |
| 387s | Guillaume's eye. |
| 388s | Wary of hidden threats, he decided to investigate. |
| 391s | >> ...but also introduce mechanics to them in a progressive way |
| 395s | in which they could learn from it. |
| 397s | >> We definitely ran into things where we realized that some |
| 400s | of the ways that we were building graphics and units were not |
| 405s | as optimized as they needed to be for something like a console |
| 407s | to run really smoothly. |
| 409s | There were things there that actually ended up improving |
| 410s | the PC game as well. |
| 412s | >> I really hope that when we bring all these new console players |
| 416s | into Age of Empires IV for the very first time |
| 418s | that they get to share that enjoyment and everything that we love |
| 422s | about the game with their friends and families. |
| 425s | Much like I did with my dad when I was growing up. |
| 428s | That comunity is so special to me. I met my wife |
| 431s | playing Age of Empires. |
| 433s | Maybe when we have children they'll play Age of Empires too. |
| 437s | >> My favorite thing about Age of Empires is the |
| 439s | diverse civilizations that are represented. |
| 442s | Even the language is representative of the civilizations for that time period. |
| 447s | That dialog grows, or changes, as the civilization Ages up and |
| 451s | the time periods change. |
| 452s | I've worked in the RTS genre for over 29 years. |
| 455s | I'm very genuine in saying that I actually prefer to play |
| 458s | RTS games now with a console. |
| 460s | >> You get all of the campaigns, all of our civilizations... |
| 463s | >> And most importantly: mods. |
| 465s | Mods will be supported at launch day. |
| 467s | >> Age of Empires IV is available now on Xbox consoles and cloud. |
| 471s | >> We took great care and attention bring this game to console players |
| 474s | and we hope you're as excited to play it as we are to share it with you. |
| 477s | >> There's never been a better time to pick up a controller and start |
| 481s | making history. |
| 482s | >> We're see you on the battlefield. |
| 494s | [XBOX WHOOSH] |