Age of Empires III is fifteen years old, and you can occasionally see it when you look at the game’s character models, but this is a very pretty game. Almost everything has been retouched, from textures to lighting and particle effects, animations, and physics. The game supports 4K resolutions and features rebuilt 3D assets. Let’s get the obvious stuff out of the way first: the Definitive Edition looks gorgeous. Almost everything has been retouched, from textures to lighting and particle effects, animations, and physics.' Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition is less a remaster and more an overhaul that makes a deeply flawed game significantly better without fundamentally changing the parts of it that worked. Rather than view Age of Empires III’s shortcomings as a problem, however, developers Forgotten Empires and Tantalus Media seem to have viewed it as a challenge. Even Ensemble knew this: they tried to change the game’s name before release. Age of Empires III isn’t bad – but it never felt like Age of Empires. Part of it was the setting: the colonial era just didn’t feel as interesting as the middle ages the Home City mechanics, while good in theory, never really felt good putting deck building into an RTS was weird maps were smaller there were fewer campaigns and civilizations the addition of firearms made melee units almost worthless and while Age of Empires II followed real historical figures like Joan of Arc and El Cid through real battles, Age of Empires III’s campaigns were historical fiction. But when you go from a masterpiece to just fine, disappointment is bound to follow. Part of it was expectation: Age of Empires II is a masterpiece and remains one of the best RTS games ever made. I should know I still have an original copy. This new model looks and sounds great, there’s a ton of new battlefields to conquer, and new ways to do that conquering.When it released in 2005, Age of Empires III was considered something of a disappointment. If you’ve got fond memories of this series, then the Definitive Edition of AoE 3 will hook you good. This particular journey simply didn’t hold the appeal for me that it once might have. The difference between difficulty settings, between story mode and the multiplayer(?), Is like day and night.

And in the interest of fairness, there is more to this game. It’s admirable, but I found myself wanting a little more. You know immediately what Age of Empires III is all about. There’s a certain elegance to this design. What you see at first glance is absolutely what you get. The game takes no big leaps, mechanically speaking. If you’re not immediately hooked, on the other hand, this is it. You’ll stay busy for weeks on end, and that’s just with the Story Mode campaigns. You’ve got a dragon hoard’s worth of content to chew up. If you love the core gameplay loop, there’s an endless assortment of battles to burn through. The downside being that you won’t find anything truly new in your dalliances. The uniform design gives you greater freedom to experiment and explore. Which is great! If conquering the new world gets old, there’s a whole set of conquests you can start over in Japan.

Really, your choice comes down to personal preference. Once you raze a few villages in the first campaign, you can hop back and forth with impunity. While there are three different campaigns in many different regions, the difference between them is mostly cosmetic.

Drop That Paintbrush, There’s a War To Win Who are these people I’m plunking down in my home base? Do they cheer me on as I engage in bloody skirmishes in distant lands? Will I receive more taxes from the townsfolk if the harbor is newly painted? I abandoned this pleasant distraction almost immediately. It’s a nice touch, but it doesn’t add a whole lot. You’re merely spicing up the main menu you see between missions. There’s a customization side hustle you can participate in, but it’s terribly shallow.

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