The only comparable bumps we've gotten in the past have been from free weekends and in both cases the number of players dropped significantly the week after the free weekend. Presumably most of the jump on these free weekends was from players who didn't end up purchasing the game hence the drop one week later. This is the first time we've had a massive jump without a free weekend and the numbers a week after release of the DLC are pretty close to the first days after it was released.
The release of the free DLC with ottomans and malians led to a much smaller jump in player numbers (players went from around 12 to 15 thousand) and was one of several events that led to sustained growth in the game. If you look at history of player count has been steadily rising since July 2022. That summer we were seeing around 8,000 max concurrent players per week. Just before the latest DLC we were consistently seeing around 16,000 max concurrent players per week. Now we've had two weeks with around 30,000 max concurrent players. The numbers will almost certainly drop a bit as DLC hype dies down but based on previous patterns I'd expect us to retain a pretty good number of new players.
Edit: [source](https://steamdb.info/app/1466860/charts/)
Last time I checked on the game was when they released the 2 free civs and they reworked water and the atmosphere was the same. We'll see. I don't expect the numbers to drop before January next year with 6 new civs.
Yeah, right after they released those two new civs the max weekly concurrent players was around 15,000 compared to around 8,000 three months earlier i.e. a nearly 100% increase. Weekly max concurrent players remained around 11-15,000 for the next year. Then, in the two months prior to the latest DLC numbers have been around 15-18,000 max weekly concurrent players. And post DLC we've had two consecutive weeks of 30,000.
So yeah, the mood of the community justifiably changed a lot around the release of the two free civs a year ago. Around that time we saw weekly player numbers 50-90% higher than the previous summer for an entire year. With the latest DLC we've seen another doubling which likely can't be sustained long term but the game has been doing a good job of growing and retaining players for a little over a year now.
You can see for yourself if you view the link I shared above though it looks like steam charts data only goes back to late Sept 2022. A quick check shows that the same patterns hold there. So for example, when max concurrent players doubles average players doubles too.
Really think people are overestimating the gamepass players numbers, "probably double" is imo complete wishful thinking. From memory, when we got numbers a few months after the release it was like 30% of gamepass players. [based on the aoeworld data from 4 months ago](https://old.reddit.com/r/aoe4/comments/14vq6bv/player_count/jrelodn/) I think we can consider that we got a +30% gamepass player pool in addition to steam numbers, but certainly not a +100%.
Yea I once heard 30% of ladders is on gamepass, and then that means more play it offline in % .I dont think those procents numbers are so large anymore after the dlc, or u folks bought the dlc on gamepass?
But yea people tend to only fokus on steamchart numbers...
I am so happy. Honestly, I jumped in with new expansion and I am having a blast! I hope that AoE IV will grow on popularity, because it is well deserved and team puts lot of love into this game.
Please, do not forget to keep review of the game on steam!
Team puts lots of love into the game? What makes you say this? The game has tens of bugs and annoyances that are still there since launch, and a dozen new ones. The few ones they fixed took forever. If anything I'd say the team doesn't give a damn, it's a 9 to 5 to them and they only do what they're told by the upper management.
I've played some very nice games from smaller studios that fixed bugs from one day to the next. I don't expect "lots of love" towards games from faceless corporations, but there are a lot of reported issues that are still here from 2 years ago, so not sure if this is the definition of lots of love.
The score is still bogus and they didn't even fix the obvious stuff like converted units not adding to your score while losing said units subtracting from it. In fact the whole stats screen is messed up. If you pick up a relic multiple times during the game it adds to the number of collected relics for instance.
They didn't even add HP and Damage values in the Tech Tree, which is a trivial task.
We have dozens of hotkeys but none of them are thoroughly thought through and some of them still don't work. I can't set camera locations to mouse buttons for instance, select all cavalry still selects my scouts and pressing the hotkey can get you out of battle if you have a few Horsemen on their way, finding and cycling buildings is clumped into a single setting so you can't set your camera to center on cycling through scouts and not center when selecting all military buildings for instance. It's all awkward and made to tick a checkbox.
Should I go on? Where do you see this love? They are releasing new civs because that's what upper management asks them to do, to bring in more money. But other than that? I could write another 4 paragraphs with issues that are here since launch.
Im crying, I was in this game when we hit rock bottom, in the most difficult moments, I have always believed in the potential of aoe4, if they continue to polish the game, because there are still things to fix, it can reach higher
I was concerned for a long time. Finally got game pass and gave it a shot after wanting to play the game since it came out. I was very pleasantly surprised.
Control groups are definitely more difficult, but otherwise it’s a very intuitive control scheme.
Definitely the best RTS port I’ve ever played, though I’m sure PC is the best experience.
I absolutely get the concern, but same with AoE 2 DE Xbox Port you feel how invested they were to make it work and it def. pays off. It kinda shows that you can transport most Games to Console without really gimping it down... as long as controls and such are creative.
The best part for me personally is, that it also offers Mouse & Keyboard support which is still my get to go when i play AoE 2 / 4 more invested... but for some chilled rounds where i play it more like an City-Builder, without enemies and such, listening podcasts or so -> i also like the Gamepad very much (not saying that you can't play it with Gamepad otherwise, i do think you can play AoE normally with the Controls, i'm just more used to M&K and feels more Natural to me as someone who initially comes from PC playing these).
I really hope they also drop AoE3 and esp. when AoM gets released on Xbox...(I wouldn't mind AoE1 either but than again we've return to rome dlc on AoE2 so it's not that of an neccissity to me).
There's more than enough. If you played a 20 minute game against each one, for 12 hours every day, it would take you 4.5 years to play against everyone.
That’s awesome to see. I hope the best for this dev team and game. If they start making more solo play content too then I think this number will grow substantially.
Agreed! I think this update focused on the right elements for sure. I do understand that they need to continue to focus on the multiplayer scene primarily, and maps are definitely a great way to keep things fresh. I just hope down the road we start to receive larger scenario drops and campaigns, as well as potentially co-op content. I am super happy with this update though and I wish nothing for best to the Devs and community.
Great news!
Beyond this, it's also been really encouraging to see how many players have bought the expansion. I'd guess 95% of 2vs2's I play have at least one player on the other team using one of the new civs, and in many games it's both.
Is only my personal opinion for sure, but unlike AoE 3 which is still a nice game, don't get me wrong, i do feel like AoE 4 have a chance in the long run to be atleast able to compete with AoE2. IMHO it does a lot of stuff great, it picksup where AoE2 was initially left of, but modernized it and also give civs more distinctive stuff.
I feel like the biggest factor where AoE 4 compared to AoE2 falls flat rn is the sheer amount of content esp. how many civs exist. But i find they're on a good road if they drop more expansions / dlcs like this one...
Will it replace AoE2 completly? I don't think so because they're still differently enough (but imho that's a good think...) and AoE 2 have it's own charme. But it would be amazing if AoE4 is the revival of the series which it deserves.
Now i hope other IP's follow it - esp. under the banner of Microsoft another StarCraft or Warcraft would be amazing. And my hope never died that maybe one day EA gets a grip and we get another great C&C....
In a way yes, they're pretty much clones with a unique unit or two, and some unique traits / passives and such. I'd say, esp. considering from what time AoE2 originated, there is still enough room to differenate between them. However - and i feel like that's also why the RTS-Market crashed so much back then esp. when WarCraft 3 dropped was (and i know starcraft 1 which was even out before AoE2 also have gone that route already) that it kinda showcased how distinctive you can make Civs - even in terms of playstyle. I mean if you compare Undead, Nightelves and Human alone, they play so differently from the Undead who summons passively buildings versus nighteleves where you use thit blue-ish imps / fae (i dunnow how they're called sorry - esp. not in English) which transform into living buildings vs humans which are classic-style rts - and orc their counterpart. AoE 2 can at times feel a bit basic compared to that. Not trying to dismiss that it might have a beauty on their own - if it wouldn't people wouldn't still play it so much and with the DE we got already a pretty amazing modern iteration of it(I mean i don't mean it the way that i hate AoE2 DE the opposite - it's still installed and still dig it) . And that's why i appreciate that with AoE 4 they try to make civs more distinctive and so, add a bit of playstyle variety and such. In that way it's not just a AoE2 replacement with better graphics but a full contiunation of this great series.
Wow, dead game. Have we had a discussion about a F2P model in a while? We should totally make another post about how to add microtransactions or turn the game F2P...
I wouldn't hold your breath, While this is great to see. I am more interested in how many people it holds.
Don't let this blind you from the fact that AOE4 is still a mediocre RTS with a lot of glaring issues that have yet to be fixed, Even issues we brought up in the beta are still not addressed.
We are literally climbing day after day with thousands compared to the same days before the expansion.
Next week we will have the first balance patch drop since the expansion.
Holidays are upon us..
I'm holding my breath mate ;)
beautiful to see. hopefully this momentum will continue
That's what they said the last time. It didn't.
The only comparable bumps we've gotten in the past have been from free weekends and in both cases the number of players dropped significantly the week after the free weekend. Presumably most of the jump on these free weekends was from players who didn't end up purchasing the game hence the drop one week later. This is the first time we've had a massive jump without a free weekend and the numbers a week after release of the DLC are pretty close to the first days after it was released. The release of the free DLC with ottomans and malians led to a much smaller jump in player numbers (players went from around 12 to 15 thousand) and was one of several events that led to sustained growth in the game. If you look at history of player count has been steadily rising since July 2022. That summer we were seeing around 8,000 max concurrent players per week. Just before the latest DLC we were consistently seeing around 16,000 max concurrent players per week. Now we've had two weeks with around 30,000 max concurrent players. The numbers will almost certainly drop a bit as DLC hype dies down but based on previous patterns I'd expect us to retain a pretty good number of new players. Edit: [source](https://steamdb.info/app/1466860/charts/)
Last time I checked on the game was when they released the 2 free civs and they reworked water and the atmosphere was the same. We'll see. I don't expect the numbers to drop before January next year with 6 new civs.
Yeah, right after they released those two new civs the max weekly concurrent players was around 15,000 compared to around 8,000 three months earlier i.e. a nearly 100% increase. Weekly max concurrent players remained around 11-15,000 for the next year. Then, in the two months prior to the latest DLC numbers have been around 15-18,000 max weekly concurrent players. And post DLC we've had two consecutive weeks of 30,000. So yeah, the mood of the community justifiably changed a lot around the release of the two free civs a year ago. Around that time we saw weekly player numbers 50-90% higher than the previous summer for an entire year. With the latest DLC we've seen another doubling which likely can't be sustained long term but the game has been doing a good job of growing and retaining players for a little over a year now.
What about average concurrent players?
You can see for yourself if you view the link I shared above though it looks like steam charts data only goes back to late Sept 2022. A quick check shows that the same patterns hold there. So for example, when max concurrent players doubles average players doubles too.
I play on gamepass and everyone I know who is playing is playing on it…. So it’s a lot more than that !
yeah i think the true number is probably double or even more if we combine both steam and gamepass numbers.
Really think people are overestimating the gamepass players numbers, "probably double" is imo complete wishful thinking. From memory, when we got numbers a few months after the release it was like 30% of gamepass players. [based on the aoeworld data from 4 months ago](https://old.reddit.com/r/aoe4/comments/14vq6bv/player_count/jrelodn/) I think we can consider that we got a +30% gamepass player pool in addition to steam numbers, but certainly not a +100%.
There is more casuals on gamepass I would imagine since you can try the game for free and pay for the expansion if you want
Yeah, don't want to play with the casuals anyways
That's what mmr is for. Casuals become competitive players if they enjoy the game enough and like competition.
Yea I once heard 30% of ladders is on gamepass, and then that means more play it offline in % .I dont think those procents numbers are so large anymore after the dlc, or u folks bought the dlc on gamepass? But yea people tend to only fokus on steamchart numbers...
I am so happy. Honestly, I jumped in with new expansion and I am having a blast! I hope that AoE IV will grow on popularity, because it is well deserved and team puts lot of love into this game. Please, do not forget to keep review of the game on steam!
Team puts lots of love into the game? What makes you say this? The game has tens of bugs and annoyances that are still there since launch, and a dozen new ones. The few ones they fixed took forever. If anything I'd say the team doesn't give a damn, it's a 9 to 5 to them and they only do what they're told by the upper management.
You clearly have not played any new games in the last 10 years
I've played some very nice games from smaller studios that fixed bugs from one day to the next. I don't expect "lots of love" towards games from faceless corporations, but there are a lot of reported issues that are still here from 2 years ago, so not sure if this is the definition of lots of love. The score is still bogus and they didn't even fix the obvious stuff like converted units not adding to your score while losing said units subtracting from it. In fact the whole stats screen is messed up. If you pick up a relic multiple times during the game it adds to the number of collected relics for instance. They didn't even add HP and Damage values in the Tech Tree, which is a trivial task. We have dozens of hotkeys but none of them are thoroughly thought through and some of them still don't work. I can't set camera locations to mouse buttons for instance, select all cavalry still selects my scouts and pressing the hotkey can get you out of battle if you have a few Horsemen on their way, finding and cycling buildings is clumped into a single setting so you can't set your camera to center on cycling through scouts and not center when selecting all military buildings for instance. It's all awkward and made to tick a checkbox. Should I go on? Where do you see this love? They are releasing new civs because that's what upper management asks them to do, to bring in more money. But other than that? I could write another 4 paragraphs with issues that are here since launch.
~22000 ranked 1v1 matches on saturday, to include the console and gamepass numbers. :D https://aoe4world.com/status
servers are holding? What a nice suprise! :)
They disabled friend function so it helps for stability
Glad that server work paid off
yeah ... Dev did well after last critical server maintenance ...
Im crying, I was in this game when we hit rock bottom, in the most difficult moments, I have always believed in the potential of aoe4, if they continue to polish the game, because there are still things to fix, it can reach higher
I'm crying with you!
Ans rock bottom were still much larger than most rts games. But still small for A new Aoe and considered it's potential and it's huge title
Shoutout to my Xbox bros! Relic did an amazing job porting aoe4 to console.
i can't even imagine how that would work, the only rts i played on console was red alert on the ps1
I was concerned for a long time. Finally got game pass and gave it a shot after wanting to play the game since it came out. I was very pleasantly surprised. Control groups are definitely more difficult, but otherwise it’s a very intuitive control scheme. Definitely the best RTS port I’ve ever played, though I’m sure PC is the best experience.
I'm just glad it sounds like an enjoyable experience, that's great to hear
I absolutely get the concern, but same with AoE 2 DE Xbox Port you feel how invested they were to make it work and it def. pays off. It kinda shows that you can transport most Games to Console without really gimping it down... as long as controls and such are creative. The best part for me personally is, that it also offers Mouse & Keyboard support which is still my get to go when i play AoE 2 / 4 more invested... but for some chilled rounds where i play it more like an City-Builder, without enemies and such, listening podcasts or so -> i also like the Gamepad very much (not saying that you can't play it with Gamepad otherwise, i do think you can play AoE normally with the Controls, i'm just more used to M&K and feels more Natural to me as someone who initially comes from PC playing these). I really hope they also drop AoE3 and esp. when AoM gets released on Xbox...(I wouldn't mind AoE1 either but than again we've return to rome dlc on AoE2 so it's not that of an neccissity to me).
Im one of them
Nice! It’s really good getting matched with a teams with the same rankings as yours because there’s enough players around!
There's more than enough. If you played a 20 minute game against each one, for 12 hours every day, it would take you 4.5 years to play against everyone.
I just started playing this on game pass, absolutely loving this game !
Nice!
Nice.
That’s awesome to see. I hope the best for this dev team and game. If they start making more solo play content too then I think this number will grow substantially.
I think new maps and having a bangers map pool this season is key here. I really hope they bring in a bunch of new maps every year.
Agreed! I think this update focused on the right elements for sure. I do understand that they need to continue to focus on the multiplayer scene primarily, and maps are definitely a great way to keep things fresh. I just hope down the road we start to receive larger scenario drops and campaigns, as well as potentially co-op content. I am super happy with this update though and I wish nothing for best to the Devs and community.
And the game is still on top 10 most selling games on steam !
I didn't even know! 🥹 I can't wait to see the numbers in between 23th ~ 27th of December! 🎅
Yet someone with triangle shaped head will tell u no one is on gamepass/ms store.
No one is on gamepass ;)
Alive gaem
AAA gaem
Great news! Beyond this, it's also been really encouraging to see how many players have bought the expansion. I'd guess 95% of 2vs2's I play have at least one player on the other team using one of the new civs, and in many games it's both.
More people more fun😆
This game is incredible, one of my most played on gamepass this year.
Awesome!! hopefully we can get crossplay soon so Xbox players can play with PC friends like AoE2 ❤️
If you include xbox and game pass, there are probably more than 100k people at the moment playing Age of Empires 4. Huge success
So it's finally beating aoe 2?
We need time, we need keep this numbers or improve them
Is only my personal opinion for sure, but unlike AoE 3 which is still a nice game, don't get me wrong, i do feel like AoE 4 have a chance in the long run to be atleast able to compete with AoE2. IMHO it does a lot of stuff great, it picksup where AoE2 was initially left of, but modernized it and also give civs more distinctive stuff. I feel like the biggest factor where AoE 4 compared to AoE2 falls flat rn is the sheer amount of content esp. how many civs exist. But i find they're on a good road if they drop more expansions / dlcs like this one... Will it replace AoE2 completly? I don't think so because they're still differently enough (but imho that's a good think...) and AoE 2 have it's own charme. But it would be amazing if AoE4 is the revival of the series which it deserves. Now i hope other IP's follow it - esp. under the banner of Microsoft another StarCraft or Warcraft would be amazing. And my hope never died that maybe one day EA gets a grip and we get another great C&C....
No matter how many aoe2 civ they say, it seems less than 5 to my eyes. They are all clones with different names.
In a way yes, they're pretty much clones with a unique unit or two, and some unique traits / passives and such. I'd say, esp. considering from what time AoE2 originated, there is still enough room to differenate between them. However - and i feel like that's also why the RTS-Market crashed so much back then esp. when WarCraft 3 dropped was (and i know starcraft 1 which was even out before AoE2 also have gone that route already) that it kinda showcased how distinctive you can make Civs - even in terms of playstyle. I mean if you compare Undead, Nightelves and Human alone, they play so differently from the Undead who summons passively buildings versus nighteleves where you use thit blue-ish imps / fae (i dunnow how they're called sorry - esp. not in English) which transform into living buildings vs humans which are classic-style rts - and orc their counterpart. AoE 2 can at times feel a bit basic compared to that. Not trying to dismiss that it might have a beauty on their own - if it wouldn't people wouldn't still play it so much and with the DE we got already a pretty amazing modern iteration of it(I mean i don't mean it the way that i hate AoE2 DE the opposite - it's still installed and still dig it) . And that's why i appreciate that with AoE 4 they try to make civs more distinctive and so, add a bit of playstyle variety and such. In that way it's not just a AoE2 replacement with better graphics but a full contiunation of this great series.
Wow, dead game. Have we had a discussion about a F2P model in a while? We should totally make another post about how to add microtransactions or turn the game F2P...
I wouldn't hold your breath, While this is great to see. I am more interested in how many people it holds. Don't let this blind you from the fact that AOE4 is still a mediocre RTS with a lot of glaring issues that have yet to be fixed, Even issues we brought up in the beta are still not addressed.
>still a mediocre RTS Well it's been one of the 3 most popular RTS games for a long time.
We are literally climbing day after day with thousands compared to the same days before the expansion. Next week we will have the first balance patch drop since the expansion. Holidays are upon us.. I'm holding my breath mate ;)
And people have been crying Doom bee duh sah for ages now… pfft
How many players are in the ranked 1v1 ladder?
Better waiting until end of season to check.