hey guys Spirit of the law here in this video we're going to be talking about the upcoming
console release of Age of Empires 2 coming next Tuesday this actually isn't the first time aoe2
has been playable on Console as fine enough Age of Kings originally had a PlayStation 2 release while
I've actually never played that version it sounds like a lot more planning is going into things this
time around to integrate the console players and let them compete on the ranked ladder I've
actually been surprised how little information has been shared so far but doing some digging there's
a frequently asked questions on the official website clarifying some common confusions
including whether you have to actually buy the game again or not and I also found an Xbox podcast
interview giving us more details of how exactly you're going to be able to play a real-time
strategy game on a controller so let's check it out first off to gauge the general interest
I put out a poll a couple of days ago asking how many people were planning to play ab2 on
Console I ended up getting over 18 000 responses and here's the results with 80 of players saying
they're gonna stick with their PC or laptop two percent said they'd make the full switch over and
four percent said a combination of the two then there's 13 who said they don't even play aoe2 and
I'm not sure how much that reflects my audience and how much is Just YouTube pushing the poll on
random people but it was a surprisingly High number now this doesn't necessarily mean the
porting to console is going to be a flop just that it doesn't have a ton of appeal to the
current fan base for all we know this could end up bringing new people and there is going to be
cross play between console players and regular pc users so this may actually grow the community to
some extent by increasing accessibility now the official site for Age of Empires is currently
pushing a new Deluxe Definitive Edition as part of the console release which I think is contributing
to confusion about whether or not you have to buy the game again I think I have it sorted out but
if you know I'm wrong and know something that I don't then please correct me below the best
I can tell this is how it works the way that most people I think own the game is through
Steam that's the way that I own it and I would guess the vast majority of people are playing
definitive addition in that way steam tends to put Age of Empires 2 on sale multiple times a
year and for example at the moment it's 65 off though that isn't even the biggest sale I've seen
in the last few months the other way to buy it is from Microsoft directly at Microsoft store which
they obviously prefer because then they don't have to give a cut to steam they have separate sales
at the moment being 15 off for the whole set of aoe2 with the DLCs which they were attributing to
being a pre-order for the console version though I describe this as a regular old bundle discount
when we get to what the console version actually is the whole console release that's happening is
they're adding an extra feature to the Windows store version meaning if you already bought it
through that store then you just have to log into that account on your Xbox S or Xbox x
and you'll be able to download it the release on January 31st isn't really a new game it's just a
new feature added to the Microsoft store version that's automatically unlocked Unfortunately they
don't give you credit for owning it on Steam and from what I've seen if you own it on Steam already
and want to move to console you have to buy it a second time now you might be thinking hey I have
Game Pass so I'm just going to get it for free and in theory you think that's the way it works
but that's not necessarily true PC game pass and console Game Pass are two different things
and the FAQ specifically says PC game PASS gives you access on a PC but not a console and that's
clearly laid out by an official source another common question is if you play it on Console
can you use a keyboard and mouse basically just using your Xbox like a computer and the answer
is definitely yes you can plug a keyboard and mouse into your Xbox and play ab2 like usual
with hotkeys and a totally normal experience the other choice you have is to use a controller but
how does the controller part work if you decide to play it that way I said it's better than
the PlayStation 2 setup but how exactly is it different well we have a bit of a glimpse into
that from an interview with Adam ice green where he shows us two examples of gameplay footage keep
in mind this doesn't just apply to console players as well as a PC player can also use a controller
I'll link the full podcast Below in case you want to listen to the whole 20-minute segment and Adam
talks a lot about what they were going for and thinking about during the development process
personally I think the most important reveals were shown in the clips though right away in the first
clip we get to see the new user interface and you can see you have quick access to idle villagers
training military units training civilian units and also placing buildings at the bottom
you can see overall the user interface is really simplified to the minimap resources
filter distribution and the global Queue at first this clip seems kind of crazy as there's clearly
throwing axemen and then a paladin being queued up without anything popping up on the screen and
actually made me worry about Auto queue being added or something like that but I don't think
that's the case we can actually see some self chat here from Blue so we're just spectating an AI here
and not really seeing the controller in action making this kind of an odd choice in my opinion
as promotional material you'd think they'd want to show someone playing competitively on a controller
and not just a death match between AIS where an AI is automating your economy the second clip is much
better though as we see in actual human playing and using the new controller features the big
addition is called the radial menu which it looks like you opened with the right trigger here you
can see how they're going to handle control groups so we have group of battle elephants Cavalier
Etc at first I was trying to read into the symbols and figure out what a moon and a grid
would represent but I don't actually think that these are going to be different functions I think
the symbols are just to differentiate your control groups without using numbers and keep things more
clear in the top left instead of control group 1 2 or 3 you have control group horn Crown sword
Etc which I actually like is it means the numbers just refer to how many units are in that group
they get a sense of how exactly a switch between unit types would work it looks like you hit the
right trigger and then the number pad to select one of those groups and can be done very quickly
at various points with units selected you can also see you have the ability to set their formation
so even a bit of split micro to Dodge Mega L shots may not be out of the question with a bit
of muscle memory now maybe more controversially they also mention new AI assist features and I'm
really digging some of the automated stuff that we've done so you know for example you can just
put down a building and say someone go build this right and your closest work will go do it
automatically there you don't have to select them right we wanted to get to that with the
console version we wanted you to feel more like a commander than um necessarily always having to
micromanage every little aspect of the game it's not immediately obvious how that's going to work
with Farms placing a bunch of houses at once or doing forward Castle drops Etc so we'll have
to see how that plays out remember crossplay is confirmed so is someone on PC you will be playing
against console players at least now and then that makes it kind of important to get the right
amount of assistance to keep things competitive without making things too automated ideally it
will also be impossible to use these features if you're playing with a keyboard and mouse or
else they'd be giving all the upside without any of the downsides of a controller as one extreme
example if they allowed Town centers to autoqueue villagers as a way to cut down on controller
actions that could give a massive advantage to anyone able to unlock that feature while playing
with a keyboard and mouse jumping back to the pool for a moment I have to admit it surprised
me how many more people said they would play PC and console well not many sank just console to be
fair that might just be the current fan base being mostly made up of PC players but to me the real
selling feature here of console isn't to be able to switch between them back and forth but would be
if you have a very low end computer or laptop that can barely Run the game if you have an Xbox series
X performance Wise It's probably comparable to a gaming computer costing twice that much at this
point if someone is unable to pass the benchmark test to play online your Xbox should pass that as
long as you have a decent internet connection and I have to feel like there's more people in
that group than showing up in my poll so maybe I'm wrong again I don't know a ton about console
and I'm just trying to work this all out from the info we're given but hopefully that helped
answer some of your questions and in a week I can get it to run on my console and actually try it
out that'll do it for this one though thanks for watching guys and I'll see you next time