Age of Empires 3: Definitive Edition DLC promised last year is cancelled: ‘We announced content before it had been built, and we now feel that announcement was premature’

In February 2024, World’s Edge announced new DLC for Age of Empires 3: Definitive Edition that was slated to be out at the end of 2024. In October of that year, however, the DLC was delayed to an unspecified “future date,” and today the studio announced that “after serious consideration,” it’s been cancelled entirely.

“We apologize that we haven’t provided any updates to you since our announcement of the DLC,” the studio wrote on Steam. “While considering the inclusions for last year’s [New Year, New Age] show, we wanted to ensure that Age 3: DE players felt part of the franchise celebration as we know you have huge passion and love for the game. However, pushing to ensure that the game was included meant we announced content before it had been built, and we now feel that announcement was premature.

“We know that this is a huge disappointment, and many of you were excited for more content. We were able to put out a patch for the game towards the end of last year but understand that it was not the size and scope you were hoping for.”

Details of the DLC were never revealed, but production director Earnest Yuen said when the announcement was made that it would feature two new civilizations “that have been highly requested by the community.” He wasn’t cleared to name them, but he did offer a tiny hint:

(Those are the flags of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and Denmark, by the way.)

The last expansion for Age of Empires 3: Definitive Edition, Knights of the Mediterranean, was released in May 2022, and with this promised new DLC cancelled it sounds like the game will be effectively settling into maintenance mode: World’s Edge didn’t say there will be no more DLC ever, but it did say it “will continue to maintain servers, rotate civs through the free trial version, and provide Customer Support for any issues you may encounter whilst playing.” Given that Age of Empires 3: Definitive Edition is now five years old, I’d say it’s a good bet that this is where the studio puts a pin in it.