Age of Empires IV Season 1 Adding Modding Tools, Ranked Play, and More This Spring

Age of Empires IV got off to a solid start last year, but fans are hungry for more, and we now know what Vancouver-based developer Relic Entertainment is working on for the game’s next two seasons. Season 1, which kicks off this spring, will introduce a full suite of modding tools, ranked play, and some other quality-of-life improvements. Season 2, coming in summer, will offer another ranked season, remappable inputs, and more. Check out the full Season 1 and 2 roadmap, below.

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Here’s a bit more detail about what to expect from Age of Empires IV Seasons 1 and 2:

Season 1

• The Age of Empires IV Content Editor (Beta) and mods. We’re excited to kick off this new journey and allow creators to make and share their own content with the wider community! The Content Editor is a robust tool, and we’ve seen from you all in the past that the sky’s the limit with modding. Alongside the editor, we’ll be introducing a number of in-house mods and tutorials to get you all started. Though the Content Editor is launching as a Beta, it will remain persistently available following the start of Season One, and we’ll be looking to build relationships with our modding community to better guide the future of the tool alongside the game.
• The 1v1 Ranked Ladder. You can read about this game mode, the tiers, and more here. We’d also like to thank those of you who participated in the preview of this feature back in January. We’ve made some small tweaks to the system – including refining our map pool list and making the Tier numbers and images align more intuitively.
• Hotkey improvements. Season One brings the following notable improvements to the hotkey system:
  • Additional categories within the hotkey menu have been added that will enable players to quickly navigate between various functions and update input speeds.
  • We’ve added the ability to rebind hotkeys to Mouse 3, 4, and 5.
  • Quickly toggle on or off Control Group exclusivity, or use any number of new hotkeys to add or remove a unit from a Control Group.
  • Players will be able to bind other commands to the “ALT” and “Shift” keys.
  • New Global Hotkeys enable players to quickly find idle villagers, cycle through structures, and much more.
• Quality of Life improvements such as Global Build Queue, the Patrol move, a civ randomizer selection within the lobby and full post-match map reveal.
• MegaRandom comes to Age of Empires IV, as do in-house created mods, a new Art of War challenge, difficulty tuning across a variety of campaign missions, and more!

Season 2

• Ranked Season Two. You can expect updates to the Ranked Season ladder, alongside the refresh. We’ll be looking to grow this feature with your input in mind.
• Fully Remappable Inputs. As mentioned above, we want to make sure the game allows for the kind of flexibility and personalization you’ve requested.
• Map Vote System. We’re aware that appetite to play certain maps is strongly influenced by game mode, presence of water, and more. In the near future, we’ll be looking to introduce an in-game system that allows players more control over what maps they end up with during matches.
• Player Color Picker. We’ve seen this feature request pop up across a number of venues – from chats during our developer streams to our official forums and more. While we’d designed the current system to provide consistent colors based on the individual, team, or opponent, we recognize that player color picker allows for important customization.

Age of Empires IV is available now on PC. Season 1 should kick off sometime in April.