Aside from Age of Empires: Definitive Edition[1], Microsoft[2] has announced Age of Empires IV. No Age of Empires IV release date or price or gameplay was revealed other than an announcement trailer that showed off various periods in history ranging from Ancient Rome to World War II.
The trailer's YouTube description was equally vague, simply suggesting "to battle through history once more in the latest entry of the landmark Age of Empires franchise." It's not a novel concept, battling through time has been done by other games such as Empire Earth. How Microsoft handles this will be a point of interest for many strategy game fans.
Unlike past Age of Empires games, Age of Empires IV is being developed by Relic. The studio has been responsible for the fantastic Dawn of War[3] series of real-time strategy games. A curious choice considering Creative Assembly - makers of the Total War franchise seem like a better fit. Both studios are owned by Yakuza[4] and Persona[5] hitmaker, Sega[6].
Nonetheless, Creative Assembly doesn't exactly pop up as the first choice for a Halo Wars title and it did just fine with Halo Wars 2[7]. Relic's take on Age of Empires could be just what the series needs.
Keep in mind that like Age of Empires: Definitive Edition, you will need a Windows 10 PC to play Age of Empires IV if Microsoft's trailer is any indicator. We won't be surprised if the game is exclusive to the Windows Store as well. Nonetheless, we don't think the lack of Steam support at launch would be a damper for Age of Empires fans....