Age of Empires 4 roadmap outlines next patch, mod tools, and ranked seasons

Fresh from the recent patch, Microsoft has now revealed its plans for the next six months for newly released RTS game Age of Empires IV. We can expect the next update to be bigger, so much so it's called the 'Winter 2021' update and will feature over 100 fixes and changes.

The official blog post provides some details on a few of the more high-profile changes coming, such as the UI for the Chinese dynasty interface, mini-map readability improvements, and the Rus no longer being able to infinitely uplicate relics like they're coming out of a Star Trek replicator

The real good stuff doesn't land until next year, however. Ranked seasons will start in early 2022, and will last for 12 weeks. The first wave of Age of Empires 4 mod tools will be coming as well in the Spring 2022 update, which will bring further balance updates and fan-requests such as the Patrol feature. No word on any Age of Empires 4 DLC or expansions, but then it seems the team at Relic has plenty to be getting on with in terms of dealing with post-launch feedback and fan requests.

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