Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition Image
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75

Generally favorable reviews - based on 48 Critic Reviews What's this?

User Score
6.1

Mixed or average reviews- based on 105 Ratings

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  • Summary: Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition completes the celebration of one of the most beloved real-time strategy franchises with remastered graphics and music, all previously released expansions and brand-new content to enjoy for the very first time.
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Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 28 out of 48
  2. Negative: 0 out of 48
  1. Oct 14, 2020
    91
    The odd-ball of the AoE family is back and is better than ever. This remake won’t change the minds of people who didn’t like it upon its original release, but it does celebrate an RTS that dared to try something new.
  2. Oct 16, 2020
    85
    Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition is a fantastic remastered game that's greatly enhanced in terms of graphics, UI, and gameplay.
  3. Oct 20, 2020
    80
    Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition is just what we want when we talk about "definitive edition": new graphics but classic style; technical upgrade and all the content to date (and new games mode).
  4. Oct 26, 2020
    75
    This particular journey simply didn’t hold the appeal for me that it once might have. If you’ve got fond memories of this series, then the Definitive Edition of AoE 3 will hook you good. This new model looks and sounds great, there’s a ton of new battlefields to conquer, and new ways to do that conquering.
  5. Nov 12, 2020
    70
    A solid remaster of a good old-fashioned strategy game. Its biggest problem? It will forever lie in the shadow of its famous predecessor.
  6. Oct 16, 2020
    70
    A modest remaster of a fun but flawed RTS that’s stuck in the ever-lengthening shadow of its predecessor.
  7. Nov 3, 2020
    50
    Age Of Empires 3: Definitive Edition has been polished up considerably graphically. There is also a lot of content available. Unfortunately, the original design flaws have not or hardly been addressed. This is a game that generally wants to do too much, makes it too complex and doesn't give enough in return. This is a nice remaster of a game that we would rather not play.

See all 48 Critic Reviews

Score distribution:
  1. Positive: 20 out of 47
  2. Negative: 18 out of 47
  1. Oct 18, 2020
    10
    Excelente remasterización le doy un 10, me gusto mucho el trabajo de forgotten empires y tantalus, nada más me encantaría que aumentenExcelente remasterización le doy un 10, me gusto mucho el trabajo de forgotten empires y tantalus, nada más me encantaría que aumenten batallas historicas y más revoluciones latinas como la de Bolivia, y pongan las campaña de la independencia de las colonias españolas, las guerras napoleónicas. Expand
  2. Oct 20, 2020
    10
    The game is really good , I love this game and the development team (Ensemble Studios)
  3. Oct 16, 2020
    10
    amazing new game, practically everything improved, 2 new civilizations and 8 new revolutions. Personally I loved that they respected theamazing new game, practically everything improved, 2 new civilizations and 8 new revolutions. Personally I loved that they respected the factions historically, in terms of uniforms and names, highly recommended Expand
  4. Oct 17, 2020
    6
    I haven't had any performance issues or crashes personally, but the game doesn't really look that much better than the original. There areI haven't had any performance issues or crashes personally, but the game doesn't really look that much better than the original. There are also plenty of sound issues, especially volume and mixing related since there are several units whose responses are almost inaudible. There are also tons of bugs from the old version that haven't been fixed, like pathfinding and units getting permanently stuck on terrain. Multiplayer is also really buggy, with disappearing lobbies, unable to observe games, unable to invite friends etc.

    In general, this is an overall weak effort from the developers. This is not some awesome transformative remaster of the game, plus it needs a lot of patches to become acceptable. It is currently not an essential purchase. Wait a year.
    Expand
  5. Feb 8, 2022
    5
    Good game - graphics look better and gameplay is ok. Campaigns are boring imo.

    There are a few negative aspects. It's buggy, the
    Good game - graphics look better and gameplay is ok. Campaigns are boring imo.

    There are a few negative aspects. It's buggy, the Multiplayer is lagging and cheaters reign it. They also cut the leveling of the cities, so now it's only for customization. There is no reason to level up now.

    Unfortunately they added timed events to this game; for example you have do do grindy stuff to unlock explorer skins, cheats or different other things, but the events are dumb and not fun at all and even limitted, forcing you to play several days and do boring stuff (like build 3 buildings of a type or such).

    Cannot recommend a game with such annoying mechanics added after release... i dont buy or play mobile games, because i cannot play every day for weeks and dislike such mechanics. Now i know why AoE IV looks like a mobile game...
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  6. Nov 2, 2020
    3
    This has been such a lazy remake of an original game. Despite some improvements, there are a tonne of bugs and continued issues from the firstThis has been such a lazy remake of an original game. Despite some improvements, there are a tonne of bugs and continued issues from the first game.

    Pros:
    * Graphics look great
    * Audio including theme songs sound fantastic
    * Card system improved (although new cards could be added as feels more basic) to make your
    game your own

    Cons:
    * Disconnection issues with players not being able to reconnect to games (why is this a thing in
    2020 especially after this being a problem on the original
    * Tonnes of bugs of characters getting stuck on things
    * Upgrades for units to go from Veteran to Guard etc, there aren't directly below each unit (this was a
    problem in the original, the whole point of a remaster is to fix problems...
    * Steam update not at same time of Xbox update so can't play with friends on Steam due to them not
    pushing updates at the same time and have to wait till they both get updated.
    * Renaming to be politically correct on a game that is set in the 1800s is ridiculous and so SJW
    focused
    * AI bot games, sometimes enemy character's economy stays at like 60 as they don't build their
    empire as glitched out
    * Lots of lagging with times when it takes up to 15 seconds to register a click
    * Poorly optimised and runs at a very low FPS
    * Stuck at 200 population (now that hardware is more powerful, maybe allow this to be changed to allow for bigger battles. Also allow you to select more than 50 units at a time.

    Overall this is merely a slight refresh with some very minor improvements but a tonne of issues of things not fixed and other bugs. Glad I didn't buy it on Steam but play on Xbox Game pass in my subscription.
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  7. Jun 12, 2021
    0
    The game itself is easily a 10/10. It is balanced, it improves the gameplay from previous entries of the saga.

    The problem comes to the
    The game itself is easily a 10/10. It is balanced, it improves the gameplay from previous entries of the saga.

    The problem comes to the Definitive Edition itself: not only is full of bugs (new bugs come with every update), but the game has also received some unnecessary changes.
    It’s a game about COLONIZATION, don’t start on the moral high ground and talk about how colonization was a bad thing and so on. I don’t care about it: I WANT TO PLAY THE GAME.

    Devs invested so much time about this politically correctness non sense: if half of this time were invested in fixing bugs, then we would have a working game.
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See all 47 User Reviews