The updated Age of Empires 4 roadmap shows over 100 balance changes coming in a major update this winter, with World's Edge and Relic Entertainment eyeing highly requested features like AI difficulty settings and old-school cheats for future updates.
The massive strategy game's first big patch is still in our rear-view mirror, and the next one seems considerably bigger. It's led by over 100 balance tweaks, in-game player scores, and several UI and visibility improvements. Plenty of bugs will be squashed in the winter update, too, but the balance stuff is the real draw. Where else are you going to find patch notes like this: "French Hulk ship tweaked to no longer rule the high seas." Great, now I'm laughing at the idea of a French Hulk and can't even appreciate the fact that "crossbowmen, spearmen and elite crossbowmen will pose a greater threat to cavalry."
Age of Empires 4's spring 2022 update is focusing more on user-generated content, including a way to share and play creations, as well as the first ranked seasons. Each season will last 12 weeks, resetting the competitive ladder at the end and dishing out loot throughout.
Longtime fans may find the game's more distant goals more exciting. The Age of Empires 4 team says it's looking at player feedback on series staples like a global build queue, taunts and cheats, hotkey changes, AI difficulty ("specifically making the easy AI less aggressive"), and other quality of life features like waypoints. World's Edge and Relic didn't share specifics, but did stress that they're "exploring" and "looking into" ways to fold in features like this in future updates.
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