(Credit: Microsoft)
Ensemble Studios' 1999 RTS hit Age of Empires II is approaching its 30th birthday, but despite its age and the genre falling out of the zeitgeist years ago, it's more popular than ever. At a recent Red Bull Wololo: Londinium tournament with a $170,000 prize pool, the final pulled in over 116,000 live viewers, eclipsing the 2022 record of 114,000, Windows Central reports.
Age of Empires II was one of the biggest games of my youth. My dad played it, then I played it, and my brothers did too. We had four desktop PCs we would use to play 2v2 LAN games; 15-minute no-rush rules, of course. I played it again as an adult when the remastered versions were released, and the Definitive Edition is still a highlight at LAN parties with friends today. Clearly, I'm not the only one still enjoying this near-three-decade-old game.
The Red Bull event on April 6 set a viewership record for the game, according to Esports Charts, with 115,944 peak viewers. With 36 hours and 35 minutes of action available, viewers watched close to 1.5 million hours of Age of Empires II action.
For comparison, the same event also hosted an Age of Empires IV event that drew only 67,450 peak viewers for that 2021 game. Event organizers know where their ancient bread is buttered, too, with IV only offering a $40,000 prize pool.
These totals are minuscule compared with some of the titans of Esports gaming. The prize pool for Valve's DotA 2 The International competition in 2021 was over $40 million, and the League of Legends 2024 World Championships had close to 7 million concurrent viewers at its peak.
But these are modern games backed by massive companies, not some ancient Real-Time Strategy game that has only been tweaked since its 1999 debut. Most games from that era do not hold up today, and even fewer foster competitive scenes.
Age of Empires II is easy to learn and very hard to master, with an incredibly high skill ceiling. The historic angle also has an appeal that the hyper-colored, hero-type games of the modern era lack. It's still fast-paced, but not quite so fast-twitch reliant. There's also a lovely nostalgia factor to the whole thing. As gamers get older, there's something comforting about playing older games and watching them played to a very high standard.
I won't pretend to know, but Windows Central claims the game is very well-balanced, too, which is hard to find in any asymmetric game. With Microsoft, Red Bull, and other companies still happy to support the game's ongoing play and development, Age of Empires II may yet reach new peaks in the months and years to come.