Home » “Age of Empires” Clone Empires Apart to be Published by Slitherine in 2017

“Age of Empires” Clone Empires Apart to be Published by Slitherine in 2017

Empires Apart, a modernised take on the real-time strategy classic Age of Empires, will launch in the second half of 2017.

Who doesn’t miss Age of Empires? Well, probably people who never played the games. And the people who already own the games on Steam and still play them. Actually, never mind that question. If you’d rather not play games well over a decade old, Italian developers DESTINYbit are ready to serve up something fresh, but retaining that same old-time smell of grandma’s real-time strategy cookies. And that something is Empires Apart.

Empires Apart borrows the classic medieval real-time strategy formula of Age of Empires II and puts you in charge of one of four civilisations: the Byzantines, the Franks, the Chinese and the Aztecs. Your goal is to gather resources, build an army and raze enemy empires to the ground to revel in your newly-acquired low-poly victory.

There’s a lot of Age of Empires in Empires Apart, but it doesn’t stop there. There’s also Heroes in the game, an element borrowed from MOBAs. You can produce a historical hero at your Town Centre and use their special abilities to boost your empire. If they die, however, they’re gone forever. I shall bet a sizeable sum of money on Joan of Arc being the hero for the Franks (please don’t be Charlemagne, please don’t be Charlemagne…).

Unlike Age of Empires II, where every civilisation was more or less identical to the other, with limited differences, the civilisations of Empires Apart will be highly distinguished. Furthermore, they will be divided into two or more “variants” that you can choose to further customise how your empire behaves. These variants are particularly designed with team gameplay in mind.

The game is being developed in Unreal Engine 4, and its low-poly look feels exceptionally smooth and physical, almost as if the units were made of paper. Will its sound design be as clunkily memorable as its inspiration, though? That remains to be seen.

Empires Apart will release in the second half of 2017. You can find out more about the game at its official site. There’s also a few interesting developer video logs available, if you’d like to see how these things get made. A new one is coming out soon, the developers have promised.