After a brief tease back in 2019, Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition has been officially revealed at Gamescom 2020 along with the exact release date. The game will wrap up the remastered trilogy of classic strategy games ahead of highly anticipated Age of Empires IV's yet-to-be-announced premiere.

Definitive editions of older games have been a reality for quite some time as an efficient way of resurrecting relatively forgotten or still very popular series and giving them a boost before announcing modern sequels. This has been the case for a wide array of titles including, most recently, the Definitive Edition of Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven, which, unfortunately, hasn’t been followed with any plans regarding a potential next game in the series. Unlike Mafia, there’s a proper continuation of the Age of Empires franchise currently in development while Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition is preparing for an approaching release.

Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition was one of the many announcements made at Gamescom 2020 during the Opening Night Live show. The game is already available for pre-order with the release scheduled to happen on October 15th, 2020. Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition has been thoroughly updated to fit modern expectations for visual quality. According to the announcement, the graphics have been rebuilt to match true 4K resolution while in-game 3D assets have been seriously reworked. Not only that, but audio and music also received their portion of attention along with modernized UI and cross-play support for multiplayer battles. On top of that, the game has been enhanced with some brand new content that consists of two new civilizations - the Swedes and the Incas - and two new game modes, Historical Battles and Art of War challenges.


Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition is the next logical step in bringing the whole original trilogy to life for the modern gaming audience. While the community of devoted fans is patiently awaiting any updates regarding the completely original sequel Age of Empires IV, the remastered version of the third game will distract players from the exhausting wait. The brand new game belonging to the iconic strategy franchise was announced back in 2017, and not a single screenshot, let alone gameplay clip, was shown for two years, until 2019, when a few videos appeared detailing the setting and demonstrating the title in action.

The announcement of Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition packed with a bit of additional new content might be enough to please the fan community while there’s still no word on when to expect Age of Empires IV. The latter will supposedly get some attention once Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition is released, which means that updates regarding the next chapter in the franchise might hopefully arrive this fall. Until then, the very idea of getting the original AoE trilogy with a modern presentation is soothing enough to keep the fans’ morale high.

Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition releases on October 15th, 2020, on PC via Steam and Microsoft Store.