Age of Empires Online

Age of Empires Online was a standalone spin-off of the famous strategy series that, instead of a traditional single-player campaign, bet on a persistent civilization, daily quests, and battles against other players. The series' basic building blocks – gathering resources, building a settlement, and advancing through the ages – remained, but were set within a framework designed to bring the player back day after day for new quests, rewards, and upgrades to their own capital city, which functioned as a persistent base between individual matches and side quests.

Unlike the main series installments, which were developed by Ensemble Studios, Age of Empires Online was handled first by Robot Entertainment, and after February 2011 production was taken over by Gas Powered Games. The game launched in August 2011 exclusively for PC through Games for Windows Live as a free-to-play title: basic play with the Greek and Egyptian civilizations was free, while additional nations and cosmetic add-ons were sold as microtransactions paid for with real money. In March 2012, the game also arrived on Steam alongside a major overhaul that added the playable Celts and eventually moved the game toward a model where practically all civilizations could be unlocked even without paying. Despite this, the player base gradually shrank, and Microsoft permanently shut down the servers in July 2014, ending the game's life even after its move to Steam.

Why play: Age of Empires Online is today interesting more as a historical curiosity than as a title one can return to in the same form as in 2011 – it shows how even an established strategy brand tried to adapt to the era's boom of free-to-play models and persistent online worlds, and why it ultimately did not pay off even after the move to Steam.