Microsoft’s beloved real-time strategy series Age of Empires returned to the limelight with a bang with the launch of Age of Empires 4 for PC last year. The strategy game continues to receive updates to keep its player base occupied, but it seems that it could soon open the doors for an even wider audience as well.
As recently spotted on Twitter by @ALumia_Italia, a product listing with the codename XIP_CAR_JANUARY_2022 has become available for internal testing on the Xbox Insider Hub. “CAR” here is short for “CARDINAL”, which, incidentally, is the codename that Microsoft has been allotting to Age of Empires 4 for internal testing, while XIP likely refers to “Xbox Insider Preview”.
Not too long ago, Adam Isgreen, creative director at World’s Edge – the internal Microsoft team in charge of Age of Empires – said that following Age of Empires 4’s PC launch, Microsoft would begin looking into the possibility of bringing the game over to Xbox as well.
By its very nature as a real-time strategy game, a console version might be tricky to pull off for Age of Empires 4– but then again, Microsoft launched an excellent Xbox port of PC-centric title Microsoft Flight Simulator last year, so it’s not completely outside the realm of possibility.
XIP_CAR_JANUARY_2022 (aka CARDINAL_JANUARY_2022) now available for internal testing in the Xbox insider Hub
— Aggiornamenti Lumia (@ALumia_Italia) January 8, 2022
This is the first Microsoft mentions XIP. Last internal tests were called:
1) Cardinal Insider
2) Cardinal Closed Beta – May 21
3) Cardinal Closed Beta – June 21
4) Cardinal Closed Beta 2 – June 21
5) Cardinal August 2021
6) Cardinal September 2021
7) Cardinal October 2021— Aggiornamenti Lumia (@ALumia_Italia) January 9, 2022
