Following its launch weekend, Age of Empires 4 managed to hit an impressive 70,000+ concurrent players, showing that it can maintain the high interest it received during its pre-release beta, and continues to have strong support among those who are willing to pay for the experience. The game has reviewed very well among players and critics, blending some of the series' most beloved classical elements with a new bevy of graphical enhancements and a few new tricks to make it interesting. Now it's time to see whether it can maintain that good will and player base moving forward.
Age of Empires is a genre defining classic that has had a major resurgence in recent years with the success of the Age of Empires II Definitive Edition. It's received multiple additional expansions and upgrades since then and Microsoft is no doubt hoping to replicate that success with Age of Empires 4. So far, it's off to a good start.
The near 75,000 players that enjoyed it over the launch weekend have fallen off over the past couple of days, but then it's a work and back to school week, so there just isn't as much time for playing games. Still, player numbers remain regularly over 50,000, making it one of the more popular games on Steam at any one time.
Twitch views of the game have fallen off a little more heavily, but there are still regularly over 70,000 viewers for the major streams, suggesting there's not only big interest in this game, but big potential for it to make a big splash on the Esports and broadcast scene.
Have you tried Age of Empires IV yet? What did you think?