Age of Empires II, first released in 1999, is the rare 20-year-old game that’s been getting new content updates over the last few years. Last month, those updates were all wrapped up into Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition, a new version of the game that contains all-new visual assets and entire new factions and campaigns.
All of this new content has been possible thanks to a modding community that evolved (with Microsoft’s help) into the company Forgotten Empires. Today on the GDC Twitch channel, Forgotten Empires lead developer Bert Beeckman dropped by to discuss the process of updating the classic RTS and what it took to design new content that would reward veteran players while attracting newer ones.
It was an enlightening discussion on the work it takes to keep games alive while also adding new content and tools to make them appealing to modern audiences, and you can now watch the full conversation with Beeckman in the video above!
And for more developer interviews and select GDC talks, be sure to follow the GDC Twitch channel.