With the massive geekgasm surrounding the official announcement of Starcraft 2, now would probably be the worst time to announce anything unrelated to Zerglings, Vespene Gas or the socio-political climate in the Korean peninsula, but apparently Ensemble Games didn’t get the memo.
If that name sounds familiar, it’s because they’re the other big RTS company; the one responsible for the Age of Empires series, and the company that single-handedly taught me everything I know about the life of Saracen. Their last title, Age of Empires 3 (and its expansion, The WarChiefs), retold the story of America’s manifest destiny in a click-click, bang-bang kinda way that the kids could really get into. Now, they’ve decided to hand off the reins of their series to Big Huge Games (the lads behind Rise of Nations, and the XBLA title Catan), for an expansion entitled The Asian Dynasties.
How BHG is going to weave the manifold tapestry of Asian history into the pre-established America-centric AoE3 is anyone’s guess, but as long as they don’t hire Owen Wilson to voice a Hydralisk, I have faith.
Try not to think about that last bit too hard …
