The development team at Relic has revealed its roadmap for Age of Empires 4, detailing plans for the game throughout 2022 and beyond.
As announced in an article on the Xbox blog, Age of Empires developer Relic revealed that the game's next patch is set to come into effect this Winter – and it's likely to be a pretty significant one. The Winter 2021 Update will include over a hundred balance updates as well as some more general performance fixes.
Around the Winter update fans will also see a number of other changes that are being implementing based on player feedback following the game's launch. These include additional options to enable in-game scores, changes to the Chinese Dynasty user interface, and tweaks to the in-game minimap.
Following the launch of the game's Winter update, the next big update confirmed for the game looks set to take place in Spring 2022. During this period, Relic says that it will be launching Age of Empire 4's first set of mod tools, as well as a range of further balance updates and community-requested features including the Patrol move.
In addition to the features above, Spring 2022 will also kick off Ranked Seasons in Age of Empires 4. During the season, players will be able to compete against one another head-to-head in order to climb higher in the rankings. Those taking part in the Ranked game mode will also be able to earn a number of exclusive in-game rewards, which the publisher notes will be assigned based upon performance.
After this point, the roadmap for the game gets a little hazier, with no timeframe currently being offered for future changes. That being said, the Age of Empires team has confirmed that it is actively looking into a number of fan-requested changes to the game that it may look to implement across 2022 and beyond.
For more from Age of Empires 4, make sure to check out this piece detailing the strong start that the game made to life on Steam. Alternatively, if you're still on the fence about playing Age of Empires 4, then make sure to check out our review of the game where we awarded it an 8/10.
Jared Moore is a freelance writer for IGN. You can follow him on Twitter.