Age of Empires 4 Developers Say a Console Release Could Be Coming

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Age of Empires 4 developers affirms that their focus is on making a "wonderful PC game", but have not ruled out a console release.
Since being re-introduced at XO19, Age of Empires 4 has been in the news quite a bit recently. First, the developers at World’s Edge made it clear that the game will not have microtransactions. Now, in a talk with Stevivor, they spoke a bit about their thoughts on bringing the game to consoles once the PC version is in the wild.

Of course, this being a Microsoft studio, the expectation for cross-platform releases is incredibly high. Most first-party Xbox games are coming out on both PC and Xbox One. However, Age of Empires 4 is a bit of a different bird. RTS games can absolutely work on consoles (Halo Wars being a testament to that); however, most games in the genre are built around mouse and keyboard.

World’s Edge agrees. In the talk with Stevivor, Shannon Loftis affirmed that their “number one priority is to make it work great with keyboard and mouse”. That should be welcome news for long-time Age of Empires fans. It shows the developers know where the majority of their audience is likely going to be and is putting a major focus on them. However, that doesn’t mean the game can’t come to other platforms later in the cycle.

Loftis told Stevivor that “once we have our wonderful PC game then, we’ll start looking at other ways that we can show up.” To me, this is a great approach for a new AoE game. Obviously, the game can be successful on consoles. Developers have proven that RTS games can work with a controller and the Xbox One does have keyboard and mouse support if you need it. Further, Age of Empires 4 seems like a perfect game to have ready for Scarlett’s launch window. If we don’t see an announcement around that time, it will be very surprising.

Age of Empires 4 doesn’t have a release date announced yet. The game will come to PC when it does launch.