Microsoft revived Age of Empires after 14 years and took it past 50 million players

By 2019 the last full Age of Empires game was Age of Empires III from 2005, and Microsoft treated the real-time strategy series as a back catalog sold at steep discounts. Yet Adam Isgreen, the franchise's creative director, told PCGamesN that more than a million people still played the old games every month, 'and the numbers keep going up' — proof to him that it was not just nostalgia but pent-up demand for thinking games.

Microsoft acted on that audience instead of leaving the series on sale racks. At E3 2019 it announced an entire studio dedicated to Age of Empires, a full remaster of Age of Empires II was due to ship that year, and a fourth mainline game was in development at Relic Entertainment — the first new entry in the core series since 2005.

The bet paid off in scale. Age of Empires IV launched in late October 2021, topping Steam's global top-sellers list ahead of Forza Horizon 5 and peaking at 73,928 concurrent players — nearly double the all-time record of Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition — while also launching on the Microsoft Store and Xbox Game Pass.

Microsoft kept feeding the revival: 2023 brought two titles to Xbox consoles and cloud, record DLC sales and the best-selling expansion in franchise history, and in February 2024 World's Edge announced that the series had passed 50 million players, with Age of Mythology: Retold and Age of Empires Mobile next in line.

Age of Empires IV peaked at 73,928 concurrent Steam players, nearly double its remaster's record, and the franchise surpassed 50 million players by 2024.

Demand was measurable before the spend: more than a million monthly players kept playing games that had not seen a new entry in 14 years.

Remasters let the existing community pay to modernize the franchise before Microsoft risked a new mainline sequel.

A dedicated studio gave the series permanent ownership and a roadmap instead of a one-off port.

Age of Empires IV launched at real scale — 73,928 concurrent Steam players, nearly double the remaster's peak — proving a new RTS could still draw a crowd.

Continuous support compounded the revival, carrying the franchise past 50 million players by February 2024.

A 'dead' genre can still be a business: with a million monthly players still in the old games, Microsoft bet remasters and a proper sequel on that base rather than cheap nostalgia cash-ins.

In February 2024 World's Edge announced the franchise had passed 50 million players, with Age of Mythology: Retold due later that year and Age of Empires Mobile in development with TiMi Studio Group. Microsoft kept feeding the line: Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition received new expansions, Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition went free-to-play with DLC planned, and Age of Empires IV moved into seasonal updates. The series that had sat dormant for 14 years was again one of Xbox's active live-service lines.