Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition

Historical real-time strategy spanning centuries of civilizations and warfare

World's Edge, Forgotten Empires, CaptureAge, Tantalus Media, Wicked Witch, Feral Interactive · Published by Xbox Game Studios · Released Nov 14, 2019

Strategy

Reviews: Very Positive; 95% of 183K
Recent reviews: Very Positive; 93% of 764 in 30 days
Playing now: 15K; right now
Steam Deck: Playable
Last update: 3 months ago; Jun 2, 2026

Metacritic: 84/100 (critic reviews)

What is Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition?

This historical real-time strategy remaster spans 1,000 years and more than 45 civilizations. You manage resources, build bases, and command armies through historical campaigns or single-player and multiplayer matches.

For you if...

+you enjoy managing resources, bases, and armies in real time
+you want historical campaigns and competitive or cooperative multiplayer
+you want a large roster of playable civilizations

Not for you if...

−you prefer direct action over managing economies and armies
−you want an easy entry into competitive multiplayer

What players say

95% of 182,522 reviews are positive · 93% of 764 in the last 30 days

Players praise the civilization variety, updated graphics, and strength of both single-player and multiplayer. Recent complaints focus on crashes or launch failures after patches, while Mac players report that they cannot play multiplayer with Windows users.

Screenshots and trailer

Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition system requirements

As published by the developer.

Minimum

OS: Windows 10 64bit
Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo or AMD Athlon 64x2 5600+
Graphics: NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 420 or ATI™ Radeon™ HD 6850 or Intel® HD Graphics 4000 or better with 2 GB VRAM
Memory: 4 GB RAM
Storage: 15 GB available space
DirectX: Version 11
Notes: 2GB of video memory + 4GB of system memory required

PC version details

DRM, required accounts, controller support and Steam features.

DRM: None declared on Steam
Controller: Keyboard and mouse
Platforms: Windows, macOS
Achievements: 370
Steam features: Cloud saves, Family Sharing, Trading cards

Steam Deck: Playable

Sometimes shows mouse, keyboard or non-Deck controller icons
Some text entry requires manually opening the on-screen keyboard
Some in-game text is small and may be hard to read
All functionality is accessible with the default controller configuration
Default graphics settings perform well on Steam Deck

Multiplayer and co-op

Languages

Full audio: English, French, Italian, German, Korean, Portuguese - Brazil, Simplified Chinese, Spanish - Latin America, Traditional Chinese, Spanish - Spain. Text only: Japanese, Russian, Turkish, Vietnamese, Polish, Hindi, Malay.