In crafting Age of Empires II, developer Relic decided to largely ignore the look at feel of Age of Empires III, which, to be fair, was an excellent game but not nearly as warmly embraced by the RTS community…or at least by me, to be honest. Now we have Age of Empires IV, which seems determined to kindle our nostalgia for the earlier title while trying to feel contemporary, relevant, and forward-facing. Age of Empires II was a masterpiece and has continued to be supported, expanded, and gussied up, with new 4K graphics, new campaigns, and new civilizations to play. Of course, over time and thanks to other games, I shelved AoE II but returned to it with a passion when the Definitive Edition appeared in 2017, reminding me just how great that the now 22 year-old-game could be.

Along with StarCraft, released one year earlier, it was in constant rotation on my gaming playlist.

As a long-time, real-time strategy fan, I played the hell out of Age of Empires II back in the day, spending hundreds of hours skirmishing against the computer or online with human opponents.