Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition Gameplay Preview

Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition is a remaster of the original Age of Empires III released back in 2005. The game carries on the legacy of its predecessors while introducing a lot of quality of life changes and improvements.

The most noticeable change is the graphical overhaul the game has gone through. It looks much crisper with higher resolution textures and models and redone cinematic cutscenes.

The game also has some nice quality of life improvements when comparing it to other real time strategy games. Troops will assemble themselves into proper formation automatically with ranged troops and artillery in the back, infantry in the middle, and mounted troops in the front. They will also adjust their movement speed to match the slowest unit to keep the formation intact. You can still micromanage each individual unit if desired but this is a welcome change for those who just want to focus on massing units and watching them stream roll an enemy with minimal effort.

The single player campaign is also a fun romp through time. The first campaign shares similar tones to that of Assassin’s Creed 1 & 3 where you are protecting the rest of the world against a sinister shadow organization called The Circle. The story is light and characters shallow and one dimensional but the pacing is excellent and it definitely adds to the game.

Overall, Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition is a fun real time strategy game. You can mass units, send them to overwhelm the enemy, and watch the mayhem ensue. The single player offers plenty of fun content to wade through and the multiplayer will keep the more competitive players engaged. The only thing that I missed was a distinct lack of an army of wololos.