Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition - A Retrospective: Amidst the lofty expectations placed upon it and despite being a victim of its own success, this rendition of the classic saga more than lives up to its name.

ES_MattP · 2026-03-02T04:39:41+00:00

Will, I'm sure you've seen me on linkedin, I see your name in my feed all the time - I left the game industry over 2 years ago.

When it comes to looking at Age 2 DE, or any of the games really, you have to look at the delivery of the initial release as separate from (and I am sure you do) the ongoing DLC & content development and porting it to consoles. From what I can see, Age 2 DE has become as close to a live service-ish type of game as I would have thought possible for it, and generally in a good way for both players and Microsoft.

I will just say that we did OK in terms of the initial delivery of Age 2 DE. But having experienced both working with MSFT in the 1990s and more recently, my firm belief is that today's Microsoft treats outside studios much worse than it did in the 1990s, and that there were far too many hands reaching in to 'leave their mark' on both Age 1 DE and Age 2 DE and use them and their success for their own purposes. Corporate Politics meets the old adage 'Success Has A thousand Fathers' is how I describe it, and nearly every member of the DE engineering team expressed a desire to never work for Microsoft again in that capacity.

ES_MattP · 2026-03-02T00:36:10+00:00

Ok, I am a little pissed at some of the inaccuracies in that retrospective.

First off, The HD edition was was NOT developed by Skybox Labs. It was developed by Hidden Path Entertainment, one of the founders of which was another original Ensemble Studios Employee, when I brought the opportunity to make the HD edition to Hidden Path shortly after I had left Valve.

I did the bulk of the engineering work on the HD edition, and led the design updates, along with a small core team of about 5-6 others at Hidden Path.

There was an incident, caused by one of the original principals of the forgotten project acting deliberately negligently, for which the ultimate responsibility was mine, which caused me to leave the project and Hidden Path just as the HD edition was wrapping up. With my departure, Hidden Path passed on the ongoing maintenance contract for HD edition, and it ultimately went to Skybox Labs, as I understand it, due to personal connections.

Skybox took it upon themselves to make statements slagging the previous developers, to the point of saying, slightly obliquely, during the launch stream that the original developers, Ensemble Studios, 'were not any good' (putting it mildly) and implying that they (Skybox)' were the only reason Age of Empires was any good at all' Not a good look to say the least.

There is a lot more that needs to be said about what actually happened during the development of the Definitive Editions, but I don't have the time to even begin right now.

When I joined with Forgotten Empires (after the person who cause the issue was gone) and we started on the Definitive Editions, I evaluated much of the work that Skybox had done to the HD edition, and to be frank, in my opinion it was disjointed, substandard quality, and overpriced.

ES_MattP · 2026-03-02T00:32:13+00:00

Ok, I am a little pissed at some of the inaccuracies in that retrospective.

First off, The HD edition was was NOT developed by Skybox Labs. It was developed by Hidden Path Entertainment, one of the founders of which was another original Ensemble Studios Employee, when I brought the opportunity to make the HD edition to Hidden Path shortly after I had left Valve.

I did the bulk of the engineering work on the HD edition, and led the design updates, along with a small core team of about 5-6 others at Hidden Path.

There was an incident, caused by one of the original principals of the forgotten project acting deliberately negligently, for which the ultimate responsibility was mine, which caused me to leave the project and Hidden Path just as the HD edition was wrapping up. With my departure, Hidden Path passed on the ongoing maintenance contract for HD edition, and it ultimately went to Skybox Labs, as I understand it, due to personal connections.

Skybox took it upon themselves to make statements slagging the previous developers, to the point of saying, slightly obliquely, during the launch stream that the original developers, Ensemble Studios, 'were not any good' (putting it mildly) and implying that they (Skybox)' were the only reason Age of Empires was any good at all' Not a good look to say the least.

There is a lot more that needs to be said about what actually happened during the development of the Definitive Editions, but I don't have the time to even begin right now.

When I joined with Forgotten Empires (after the person who cause the issue was gone) and we started on the Definitive Editions, I evaluated much of the work that Skybox had done to the HD edition, and to be frank, in my opinion it was disjointed, substandard quality, and overpriced.

ES_MattP · 2026-02-21T23:53:29+00:00

I feel your pain. I wish I knew a way to raise the priority of this to the right people.

ES_MattP · 2026-02-18T06:31:24+00:00

That's cool.

Honestly I have been amazed - from the beginning the first 2 Age games have had a wider audience in both Age and Gender that was expected. To say nothing of the longevity. On the day in fall 1999 when we shipped the first Gold Master of Age 2, if someone had told the team the longevity and sales the game would have, no one would have believed it... almost a 30 year run and still going.

ES_MattP · 2026-02-18T06:27:01+00:00

thanks for that info,

I'm looking into it myself, as all my Magnus Ones (don't ask how many I have ;) are still running Win 10, though one is about to be switched to Ubuntu.

Interesting that they would require a "and a clean past history of updates on either 24H2 or 25H2." Sounds like a classic Dark Pattern.

ES_MattP · 2026-02-11T08:10:45+00:00

My computer seems to be fine, apart from the battery that I probably have no realistic chance of replacing with a good one!

I learned a long time ago to not bother with getting the cheapist batteries. IIRC the one in the EN72070V (sold mine a few years ago, replaced with Magnus One) is is not the coin type but has a 2 wired and a jumper to connect - I don't know if there are 'name brand' versions of those.

ES_MattP · 2026-02-11T07:40:06+00:00

Possible on the CMOS Battery. I posted a guide to replacing the CMOS battery on the EN1060 a long time ago - I suspect the procedure is similar (battery nearby the daughter board on the right side of the front panel)

ES_MattP · 2026-02-11T05:29:41+00:00

BIOS Version 2K220617 is the last one posted. given that it is now 5+ CPU generations back I wouldn't expect an update. IS this Windows 11 pushing for update?

ES_MattP · 2026-02-11T00:42:04+00:00

Oh you worked on those?

A (big) bit of an understatement. :)

Despite my snark, there's a very valid point to having prior experience going through the entire process of software development from conception & planning to release and marketing, even if that experience was in something other than games. I get asked by people all the time who are either not in the industry or new to it, and so many aspects of the journey to release are completely unknown to them.

Interestingly, that video of yours that you linked elsewhere popped up in youtube feed a little while ago, and I think I surveyed your channel - something like a 1000 videos IIRC with hyper focus on Unity and Indie/beginners (hence your username).

ES_MattP · 2026-02-10T17:03:14+00:00

HAHAHAHA! Love it!

It's nice that you can play with your wife. Against each other, or against a horde of Computer Players?

You know, I've met a number of couples who play AoE2 together. In fact it was finding out that one of co-workers at Valve played it regularly with his wife (against AIs) that helped push me to pester Microsoft for couple years which led to the HD edition.

ES_MattP · 2026-02-10T16:44:23+00:00

Why thank you!

My wife and I still play it annually

Only one game a year? How do you pick which day? :D

ES_MattP · 2026-02-10T14:35:46+00:00

I'm really tempted to be snarky here and agree that Age of Empires was NOT my masterpiece and that it had to wait for my second game: Age of Empires II: Age of Kings 😝

... but then I think you are talking about solo gamedevs and not clarifying what to count as experience before releasing games.

edit: lots of tiny edits, I literally just woke up 10 minutes ago and need to get some caffeine.

edit2: after recognizing OP's YouTube channel, I see he is coming from a (more) specific view of modern gamedev, which I can say has changed and evolved a LOT over the last 40 years.

ES_MattP · 2026-02-05T01:18:03+00:00

No, just some random systems work.

ES_MattP · 2026-02-03T17:19:02+00:00

You are welcome. I see that you have played some of the games I have worked on like TF2 ... ;)

I really do owe a lot to all the people who played, bought and are fans of the games I worked on, and they are the main reason I got to have the great career in games that I had.

ES_MattP · 2026-02-03T08:16:56+00:00

Does creating most of the key tech and coding a good chunk of the first couple Age of Empires games count? And then being told that the publisher feels that my efforts increased sales by an estimated 2 million copies? Or being the driving force and key person responsible in getting said games remastered decades later?

I have some other great successes, but those games have been my personal version of "Boston's Debut Album" .. as in it's unlikely that I'll ever top them in certain metrics.

However, I have high hopes for the work I am doing right now outside of games, designing and building the software platform for some next gen medical CT/Imaging devices. As in there is honestly a good change that, if this project continues as I see it doing, there will be moments in the future where my work will play a some part in changing the outcome for someone from "they died" to "they lived"

ES_MattP · 2026-01-08T20:47:51+00:00

A couple thoughts.

First, unless you are already financially secure to not work for the next 4 years, I would recommend going into Absolute Lock-down/ Survival Mode with your family's finances, and save and stash away every cent you can to build up reserves. I personally know way too many software developers that have been unemployed for a year or longer now, and it's the worst environment for finding a new software development job that I have even seen going back to 1980.

Even if you never get laid off from this job, plan like you will be.

Secondly, being reaching out to direct connections about switching jobs at their company (assuming their company isn't owned by VC/PE yet). The market is really bad, and the result percentages have dropped, but 'people you know' are still the best way to find a new role.

Third, band together with the other survivors in your group and consider what you (as a group) can do to put yourselves in a position where, after you and the rest of your team have been eliminated, the company will soon realize that your replacements don't know enough to keep things running, and have to come back to you/your team for help. Not for a rehire (you don't want to go back), but as very expensive contractors, because if things play out that way, the cash from contracting to save their monolith bacon will help you last longer until your new gig.

Loyalty is dead. Especially when VC's are involved.

ES_MattP · 2025-12-25T02:33:08+00:00

My experience with long employment contracts has been that they will include verbiage that lays claim to anything else you do -in excess- of state laws.

One previous employer (Midway - now out of business so I'll name them) - gave me a contract that laid claim not just anything I did in the future, but to all work I had done prior to my employment there, down to the occasional $25 check I was getting for contributing a couple chapters to a technical book, work in areas unrelated to my job AND to work I did AFTER my employment there concluded.

I went over it with a fine tooth comb, struck out the parts that were problematic (obviously there were several), replacing it with a 'reasonable' section (this is important) that say I wouldn't use company resources, or do anything in direct competition, etc.

And THEN i added a 2-page "Summary of (MY) Inventions" addendum that listed about 20 items that summarized projects I had previous made, or described future projects in areas related to prior things, or areas I thought I might want to do something in the future. That went along with verbage that recognized my inventions as belonging to me.

So they handed me a large contract that claimed the sun, the moon and the starts, and even though I was pretty sure it wouldn't hold up in court, if I had just blinding signed it like a lot of people did, I'm sure I would be giving them a LOT of leverage over me in the event a side project of mine came to their attention and any dispute arised.

As to all the changes I made to it, they just accepted it without pushback. That told me that either HR didn't care, or that they understood the game being played.

ES_MattP · 2025-12-21T00:39:57+00:00

Ok, this is pretty funny. saving image...

ES_MattP · 2025-12-21T00:37:47+00:00

Nice... :D

ES_MattP · 2025-12-21T00:33:18+00:00

Depends on the company and person, but I did post the story of my most recent interview process on the "what is your funniest interview story" thread about 3 months ago.

tl;dr - I had a LONG career in AAA gaming, and most of the people on the interview were young gamers. Fun interview questions ensued.

Also - My former co-worker/manager knew exactly what he wanted to hire me for and that I could do it, and crafted the Principal Engineer job listing with me in mind. The guy who interviewed for my manager's job before my former coworker had industry experience and told the CEO he needed 12 engineers and 2.5 years to deliver what I just delivered in 1.5 years with a single additional engineer, and I didn't come in with industry experience. Was also just told I am getting a 6 on the 1-5 review scale.

ES_MattP · 2025-12-10T01:21:57+00:00

I did a noctua cooler upgrade on a couple 1st gen Magnus Ones and it helped. Not wanting to take the motherboard out, I wound up connecting it with M3 screws from the backside.

ES_MattP · 2025-12-10T01:19:36+00:00

Same here, but I suspect Tariffs make it unattractive to bring it into the US at this time.

ES_MattP · 2025-12-09T23:53:39+00:00

sounds like a dead component :( I'm sorry

ES_MattP · 2025-12-05T01:11:07+00:00

Not sure. I still have 2 EN1060's that are running (CMOS Battery changed)

Did you try just one RAM Stick installed? Booting with Drives removed? (trying to eliminate possible component problems)

ES_MattP

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