It is one of the most mythical strategy games of all time. 20 years later it returns with an expected remastering in 4K that far from being simply a graphic improvement is a remodeling to adapt the game to this new era. A new edition that will have as a challenge to maintain the essence of the original and offer something new so that those who enjoyed it at the time, come back to try it.
During E3 2019 we had the opportunity to interview Bert Beeckman, director of 'Age of Empires II Definite Edition' and Adam Isgreen, its creative director. We asked them about the remastering process, what new developments and projects are expected for the future of the saga and how they have managed to maintain the essence of the original RTS. Because if they know something of the two directors is about the spirit of 'Age of Empires', for something they were chosen to lead this new project after triumphing with the excellent mod 'Forgotten Empires'.
'AoE Definitive Edition': rescuing the essence of the original
What challenges have you faced with the Definitive Edition of the first Age of Empires, both when rescuing the 1997 original and when introducing new elements that the original did not have?
BB: That's a good question! Especially with the first AoE if you play it now it's a very old game in terms of controls, the gameplay, the mechanics are a little imperfect ... when people think of the first 'Age of Empires' and tell them you're going to improve they tell you that this is basically 'Age of Empires II' [laughs]. So what we wanted was to be as faithful as possible to the first 'Age of Empires' and at the same time optimize it as best as possible ... reach that balance How far we could improve it and to what extent we had to maintain the essence of the original ? In fact it has been a reason for constant debate in the team.
"When people think of the first 'Age of Empires' and tell them that you're going to improve, they tell you that that's basically 'Age of Empires II'."
AI: We had to make a lot of effort to establish where to draw the line between maintaining the original game without turning it into 'Age of Empires II' because a lot of the things that we could do suddenly you realized that that would be 'Age of Empires' II 'and no, not at all, we did not want to mix anything with AoE II. We wanted both games to be what they were and that's always a challenge when you make these new versions.
It's about looking for that balance between what was good about the game originally and what needs to change. Here you can see that we did not want to change the battle mode, it is very good in AoE II, but there are many related things and it is the kind of decision we had to make for that game. But it is something that changes in each game.
For example, in 'Age of Empires I' we had some more creative freedom, since the graphics were very old and we felt that we had to work more on the graphics, but in AoE II you have things like the catapult and everybody has to see the catapult and recognize it. That's why the design is the same, with better quality, but you do not have problems to recognize the units, especially 20 years later with all that content and that you do not even take half a second to recognize the objects of the video game.
"20 years later with all that content the design is the same with better quality, so that you do not even take half a second to recognize the objects and units of the video game."
What is the process of remastering an 'Age of Empires'? Could you explain me step by step ...
AI: There are so many things that we have to look at ... on the one hand you have all the graphics, you have to examine each of the graphics ... is it worthwhile to use a graphic or do you have to create it from scratch? The first thing to do is an evaluation to find out what needs to be changed and in some cases we realized that we did not even have the original files anymore ... In the case of music and some audios we gave ourselves mind that we did not have them and we had to record them again. So that was one of the first steps ... to determine what we had and what we did not have.
The second step is to establish what is worth using and what not: you may have something that you can use, but it is very outdated and it is better to change it. It is good to have the original to understand what it was, but we can make new versions much better. From there, it is about working with that and maintaining a communication with the community to determine which things are worth improving and which are not. Taking into account all the comments that users have contributed over the years ... "I wish this was in the game!" and from there we can ask ourselves if it is worthwhile or not.
It's a kind of loop in which we wonder if something is good enough, right? So how can we improve it? Is this good enough? Yes, well, then to work on the rest of things that need to change. And so continue with that process until we can get something that we consider the final version of the game ... but it is a long process where you have had to turn around many things with many substantive discussions over the years to achieve it.
You are developing a new campaign, can you tell us about it?
AI: In fact we have three new campaigns. Everything revolves around The Lost Khans, which is the theme of the campaign and basically we focus on the successors of Genghis Khan and everything that happens in Asia and Eastern Europe and that is what we are going to focus on those campaigns.
Upcoming projects of 'Age of Empires'
Do you have new expansions in mind for the original trilogy?
AI: The good thing is that as long as people still want to play 'Age of Empires II' we will keep thinking about new content for the game. Simply because we are going to get these final versions of the game does not mean that if in the future people want new content we will not get them out. Even if we take AoE III and AoE IV, it does not mean that we are not going to get new content for the other games. No matter how you want to play AoE, we want you to be able to play.
The remastering of 'Age of Empires III' was announced in 2017 but we still do not know anything ...
AI: The good thing is that this year we are going to release 'Age of Empires II', but also at the end of this year we are going to start talking about AoE III and AoE IV. What I can say is that everyone is going to be surprised with what we are going to do with both games. The III will look quite different from the original, not in terms of gameplay, but rather in the graphic aspect.
Are you considering taking something out for the Xbox?
AI: We're definitely going to get something for Xbox. Right now we are focusing on PC because it is an RTS franchise for PC and we want to make the best PC games we can. The good thing is that we have a lot of support from Xbox and as soon as we finish with these final versions we will see what we can do to get 'Age of Empires' on other platforms. There is no announcement yet, but it is something that we are definitely going to take into account.
A saga that continues to attract new players 20 years later
Although this year 'Age of Empires II' turns 20, it is still a very attractive title for a large community of players. On what is this secret based? Adam Isgreen offers us some data and a little reflection. "When you look at the numbers we have more than a million people who play some AoE on a regular basis and the number is increasing, it's crazy." If it were just nostalgia the number would remain the same and would be reduced little by little , but every time there are new people who enter the world of AoE ".
One of the keys, according to the creative director of AoE, of the videojuegos of strategy in real time (RTS) is that "many people know how to play to this type of games but they do not know ... they play to games type Farmville". It is an adaptation to the new times, with faster and more accessible games. A stream of which they are aware and have no qualms in recognizing. "We are working to see how we can make the games shorter without losing their essence, for example we have been working with a game mode in which you already start with a town and some technologies, saving you the first 20 minutes slower. game and take action ", they explain.
"I would not like the essence of AoE to be like in 'Starcraft' where it focuses more on APM (actions per minute) and is a central part of the game, AoE is not about that, so we wanted to make sure that we stayed true to the essence of Age of Empires, which does not imply that we are not open to new game options that we can create for players who are used to faster game modes ", concludes Isgreen. And is that the remastering of the 'Age of Empires' has as main objective to maintain the essence. It is a message repeated over and over again, although that does not prevent in 20 years have changed many things in the world of video games.