“We announced content before it had been built, and we now feel that announcement was premature.” The DLC was originally set for a late 2024 release, but after an October delay, the project has now been scrapped entirely.

Back in February 2024, World’s Edge announced a new DLC for Age of Empires 3: Definitive Edition, scheduled to launch by the end of the year. However, in October, the studio postponed the release indefinitely. Now, after further internal discussions, they have officially confirmed that the expansion has been canceled altogether.

“We apologize for not providing any updates since our announcement of the DLC,” the studio wrote on Steam. “While considering the inclusions for last year’s [New Year, New Age] event, we wanted to ensure that Age 3: DE players felt included in the franchise’s celebration, as we know you have a deep passion for the game. However, in our rush to make the announcement, we ended up revealing content that hadn’t even been developed yet. We now recognize that this was premature.”

“We understand that this is a major disappointment, as many of you were eagerly anticipating new content. While we did manage to release a game patch towards the end of last year, we acknowledge that it did not match the scale or scope that players were hoping for.”

The DLC’s content remains a mystery

The studio never provided details about what the canceled DLC would have included. However, when the announcement was made, Earnest Yuen, the production director, revealed that it was meant to introduce two highly requested civilizations. While he was unable to name them, he did provide a small hint regarding their nature.

The last expansion for Age of Empires 3: Definitive Edition, Knights of the Mediterranean, was released in May 2022. With this latest DLC now scrapped, it appears the game is shifting into maintenance mode. World’s Edge hasn’t outright stated that no further DLC will ever come, but they did clarify that they “will continue to maintain servers, rotate civilizations in the free trial version, and provide customer support for any issues encountered while playing.” Considering that Age of Empires 3: Definitive Edition is now five years old, this may very well mark the end of any major content updates for the game.

Source: PC Gamer