Surprise! Microsoft is releasing a new version of Age of Empires II next month on Steam! This so-called "HD" edition has the same 2D graphics but has support for modern displays (widescreen, multi-monitor setup), a matchmaking system, Steamworks (achievements) and more. It even includes the Conquerors expansion!

I spent a lot of time playing the original, including some epic matches of 15 hours(!), and a version that properly supports modern PCs might very well be worth it. I only stopped playing it when putting together multiplayer games failed to work most of the time. I'm looking forward to this one!

Sb20, they most likely rewrote the network code for this release, so multiplayer games should finally be easy to setup instead of losing hours tuning router configs. I'm definitely up for some online matches if you are...


One thing I'd like to point out is that this is a bit of a cheap move from Microsoft. They laid off the entire Ensemble Studios team, who built the franchise, yet go back and reuse their past treasures without any issues. Of course they've got the legal rights to do so, but I'm not convinced that it's right to do...