Age of Empires 2 pro player TheViper recorded lines for Norwegian units in the civ for the Kingdom of Denmark and Norway in the upcoming Baltic Powers DLC.

Sandy Petersen made DOOM. He co-designed Age of Empires. Across three long conversations, he's shared stories from behind the scenes at Ensemble Studios - the balance decisions, the accidents that became features, the corporate chaos.

Here's 24 of them in one place.

The Korean incident that nearly got Microsoft reps arrested. The balance decisions made on pure vibes. The bugs Ensemble decided to keep as features. The plan to fire the entire studio the day Halo Wars shipped. The mangonels that chop down forests - and what they were originally allowed to destroy. The bridges the programmers refused to build.

Let's Talk About the Age of Empires

Real-Time Strategy once ruled PC gaming with legends like StarCraft, Age of Empires, Warcraft, and Dawn of War. But over the years, the genre has faded. New RTS games launch… and fail. Why?

In this video, we break down:
✅ The Golden Age of RTS and how it shaped gaming
✅ How StarCraft kickstarted modern esports
✅ Why publishers abandoned RTS games
✅ Why most new RTS titles can’t capture the magic

From Command & Conquer to StarCraft II and Dawn of War III, we’ll explore the rise, fall, and potential comeback of RTS.

Rise and Fall: Civilizations at War was the third title by Stainless Steel Studios - the creators of Empire Earth. Unfortunately it didn't turn out that great, the developer went under and it was finished by the publisher. Not only did it have some really interesting ideas, it also had a story behind it that's often mispresented whenever it is retold. Let's look at the game, examine what happened in detail and see if the whole "amazing studio crushed by bad publisher" narrative holds up.

You don't want them to ruin all your hard work, after all.

Company of Heroes 3: Final Stand is coming later this month.

Rise and Fall: Civilizations at War is one of those games that would go insanely hard if you're 12. It's a bizarre game, and its got an equally bizarre development story. Let's see how it holds up 20 years later...

The multi-planet RTS game Planetary Annihilation: TITANS has been upgraded, adding co-op support to their fancy Galactic War mode.

I have this tendency to dial up things to 11 when I really think I need to make a point.

Relic's classic World War 2 RTS is getting a remake to celebrate for its 20th birthday

T90's Boar walks directly to his Town Center. Why does this happen?

It takes all sorts.

T90 might be wrong about autofarming but he’s a great guy keeping the age of empires scene alive like nobody else.

Crowd funding link: https://wolf-studios.tv/wss/boit/gameathlon-athens/crowdfunding/

While they were already on GOG, the Empire Earth games have now arrived fully on Steam so you can jump into this classic RTS series.

The developers reviving Planetary Annihilation: TITANS have announced another update in their work to improve this grand-scale multi-planet RTS.

In this story-driven RTS you lead a small band of warrior-farmers on an epic journey across the fall of the Bronze Age ancient empires.

Eugen Systems have secured the rights to their lost strategy game R.U.S.E. and released a new Steam Deck compatible version at no extra cost to existing owners.

R.U.S.E. on Steam

Krush Kill 'N Destroy (KKnD) and the sequel Krush Kill 'N Destroy 2: Krossfire, two classic strategy games from the 90s are getting some major upgrades in June.

And you don't have to install Warcraft 3 Reforged to launch it.

Outlive (2000) on Wikipedia

Outlive (Portuguese: Outlive: A Era da Sobrevivência) is a real-time strategy video game developed and produced by Brazilian studio Continuum Entertainment. It is a mission-based real-time strategy game where the player controls either the human military or robot forces and attempts to eliminate all opposing forces. It was initially released in 2000 in Brazil (2001 for the rest of the world), and was the second and most successful product of Continuum. The game was one of the few Brazilian games to be published by a mainstream AAA publisher back in the early 2000s. It was published in the United States and Europe by Take-Two Interactive.