Of course, those who want to play earlier can pick up the Premium Edition for $49.99. It features five days of advanced access, Immortal Pillars, Gods Pack: Freyr and Legacy Deity Portraits Pack. Access to a second unannounced expansion is also included.

The PS5 version will include all previously released updates and features cross-platform play. Even better, all versions will have update parity, ensuring they receive the latest patches simultaneously.

As for Immortal Pillars, it includes 12 new playable gods, including Fuxi, Nüwa, Gonggong, and Zhurong, with different powers and mythological units like Yazi, Zhuque, and Taou. There’s also a new campaign based on Chinese mythology, spanning nine levels and seven new maps. Check out the trailer below to see it in action.

However, it’s also received backlash for the Legacy Deity Portrait Pack, which contains the original portraits of its deities for $6. Fans were initially peeved to see the new portraits, especially with no option to change to the originals. Seeing them ripped out and sold separately has prompted a “Very Negative” rating, with only 16 percent of the 207 user reviews on Steam marked as positive.

The game has otherwise been received well, with 92 percent of the 4,409 user reviews positive, resulting in a “Very Positive” rating on Steam. As for what’s next, the team will add new features like Arena of the Gods and improvements based on community feedback. It also has an expansion in the works, with a second due sometime in the future. Check out the roadmap here for more details.

There will also be theater presentations for Avowed, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle and Starfield: Shattered Space. Other playable titles from third-party studios include Star Wars Outlaws, Little Nightmares 3, Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2, Atomfall, and a new demo for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chornobyl.

Indie titles like Squirrel with a Gun, Winter Burrow, The Alters, REPLACED, and Creatures of Ava will also be available in a dedicated Indie Selects area. Check out the list of available games here.

Gamescom 2024 runs from August 21st to 25th. Before that, Gamescom Opening Night Live returns on August 20th with new announcements. Stay tuned for more details in the coming weeks.

Available until July 14th, 11:59 PM PT, beta players will have access to the Tutorial, three Pantheons (Greek, Norse and Egyptian), and the Fall of the Trident campaign’s initial five missions. Skirmish and Multiplayer are also confirmed, with the latter supporting up to eight players.

The purpose of the closed beta is to polish existing systems, root out bugs and provide feedback on balance (which is ongoing, so don’t take it as the meta going into launch). Of course, the beta has issues – localization for its supported languages is incomplete, and cross-play between the Microsoft Store and Steam players may not work. World’s Edge does note that in-game invites should function, even if they’re unavailable outside of the game.

Age of Mythology: Retold launches on September 4th for Xbox Series X/S and PC. Outside of the closed beta, there are plans for a limited-time stress on Steam “designed to fully load out and test our servers” with no pre-orders required. Stay tuned for updates in the meantime.

Microsoft has, for instance, confirmed that it will be attending Gamescom this year, as recent leaks had suggested. Set between August 21 and 25, the event will see Microsoft bringing its biggest ever booth for Gamescom, with the company’s lineup of titles being a packed one. The first-party Xbox titles that are confirmed for Gamescom so far are Avowed, Ara: History Untold, Towerborne, Diablo 4: Vessel of Hatred, World of Warcraft: The War Within, and Age of Mythology: Retold, among others. Further updates on The Elder Scrolls Online and Fallout 76 will also be shared.

Of course, a couple of the aforementioned titles (specifically, Towerborne and Avowed) do not have specific release dates, in spite of being officially set for 2024 releases, so it’s likely that Microsoft will announce launch dates for them at Gamescom.

So far, Ubisoft and THQ Nordic have also confirmed that they will be in attendance at Gamescom this year. On the other hand, however, PlayStation and Nintendo will be skipping the event.

But you want to know about the games, huh?

Just a few you can expect to see: Age of Mythology: Retold, Avowed, Ara: History Untold, Diablo IV: Vessel of Hatred, Diablo Immortal, The Elder Scrolls Online, Fallout 76, Towerborne & World of Warcraft: The War Within. More to come!

— Xbox (@Xbox) June 20, 2024

Described as “an epic and innovative experience for old and new players alike”, Age of Mythology: Retold will modernize the original game with several new features and updates, which we get plenty of new glimpses of in its new trailer, chief among them being, of course, its instantly noticeable visual enhancements. Plenty of maps and factions are also shown off, as well as some of the high-flying, explosive battles that fans of the original will be familiar with.

Age of Mythology: Retold will launch on September 4 for Xbox Series X/S and PC, and will also be available via Xbox Game Pass and PC Game Pass day and date.

The trailer, clocking in at over 4 minutes, was presented by art director Melinda Rose, who went on to showcase some of the new assets for units coming to Age of Mythology: Retold, such as Medusa, Pegasus, and Cerberus. The trailer caps things off by showing off the new key art for Age of Mythology: Retold.

Originally announced back in October 2022 when Microsoft was celebrating the 25th anniversary of the Age of Empires franchise, Age of Mythology: Retold is set to be an expanded remaster of the original in the vein of Age of Empires 2: Definitive Edition.

During a recent livestream celebrating Age of Empires’ 25th anniversary, Microsoft announced Age of Mytholoy: Retold, an expanded Definitive Edition-style remaster of the beloved 2002 real-time strategy spinoff. The announce trailer (which you can check out below) doesn’t tell much, nor does it show any gameplay, but if past Definitive Edition releases of Age of Empires titles are anything to go by, we can probably expect significant upgrades, improvements, and content additions.

Age of Mythology: Retold is in development for PC, but it doesn’t yet have a release date. Microsoft has also unveiled Age of Empires Mobile, and announced that Age of Empires 2: Definitive Edition and Age of Empires 4 will be coming to Xbox consoles next year.

Both titles will be releasing for Xbox Series X/S and Xbox One in 2023, with Age of Empires 2: Definitive Edition launching on January 31, 2023, and Age of Empires 4 following later in the year. A specific launch date for the latter hasn’t yet been confirmed.

Both games will feature support for mouse and keyboard gameplay on Xbox consoles, along with the option to enable cross-play and play via Xbox Cloud Gaming. Of course, like all first party Microsoft releases, both will also be available via Xbox Game Pass.

Xbox players can also expect a new tutorial and user interface designed specifically with console gameplay in mind.

“We knew that bringing the complexity of RTS to Xbox consoles was a massive task and one we had to approach carefully and thoughtfully,” writes Emma Bridle, director of customer voice at World’s Edge. “The team has been working hard to bring an experience that not only feels great using a controller, but also teaches players how to play on Xbox. A new tutorial designed specifically for controller input paired with a new user experience for console will help players get started. We’ve also added a new game AI which helps make resource management in a strategy game efficient and intuitive.”

The announcement was made during a recent livestream celebrating Age of Empires’ 25th anniversary, where Microsoft also unveiled Age of Mythology: Retold and Age of Empires Mobile.

Microsoft has announced Age of Empires Mobile with a brief CG teaser trailer that shows an army riding out of a fortress, seemingly headed for battle. Details on the game are scant (hell, they’re practically non-existence), so pertinent questions like how the game will control on mobile devices, what it will have on offer by way of content, and what its monetization will look like currently remain unanswered.

When will it launch? We don’t know that yet either, but Microsoft says it’s coming “soon”. How soon “soon” will be remains to be seen, but hopefully that means more concrete details on the title (and perhaps a proper look at its gameplay) will be arriving sooner rather than later. In the meantime, check out the game’s announce teaser below.