Age of Empires 4, which rebooted after 15 years, was an unprecedented success last year, ushering in a renaissance in the RTS (real-time strategy) category. While it's available on Xbox Game Pass, more players are still playing on Steam, which currently holds the record for the series having the most people online. Demand for its console version has always been there, and the recently revealed new codename suggests that its Xbox version is under development.
Twitter user Aggiornamenti Lumia exposed the news, saying that Empire 4, code-named "Cardinal", is being tested in the Xbox insider hub, speculating that the letter XIP stands for "Xbox Insider Preview", which is the first time Microsoft has linked it to Cardinal.
Last July, Microsoft ported its famous PC game "Microsoft Flight Simulation" to the Xbox Series X console, and the same thing could happen to "Age of Empires 4".
Empires 4 is an RTS game that focuses on operation and APM, and adapting to the console platform may make great design tweaks. Some people doubt whether the host platform can play RTS, in fact, the famous "StarCraft" and "Dune" in history have been out of the console version, and the controller operation, although bulky, is also feasible. On the other hand, Microsoft has long opened up PCs and Xbox, and its Xbox console has always been able to perfectly support keyboard and mouse.
N64 Edition of Interstellar 1:
2022 is an important year for Age of Empires 4, with a number of major updates poised to be made, as well as the expected ladder system, hoping to continue its glory in 2021.