UPDATE (3/24): The Age of Empires IV Public Update Preview build has been updated to more closely align with what will be officially released in the Spring update. To coincide with this update, the Age IV PUP has been extended through the weekend to March 28th at 10am PT (17:00 UTC). Head over to the official PUP forums on Steam and keep the comments coming (note that you must own the game on Steam and be logged in to view).
We are excited to announce more details regarding our Public Update Preview (PUP) on Steam for Age of Empires IV – launching today, March 10th! Owners of Age of Empires IV on Steam now have access to many of the exciting changes we have planned for the Season One Update through Friday, March 18th (now extended through March 28th).
PUP sessions will not only present a sneak peek to owners of the game but also provide an opportunity for passionate players to step up, give feedback, and help us identify potential issues ahead of our major updates. Builds will generally contain new features, content, or bug fixes and will provide a preview of what’s coming to the game in the weeks leading up to a major update.
Among the future content available during this PUP is a first look at mods! Join in if you’d like to experience some of the mods we’ve created in-house and plan to launch with Season One, including:
- Royal Rumble (Game Mode) – Based on the classic Age of Empires II game mode “Regicide.”
- Dire Wolves (Tuning Pack) – The Wolves are hungry and out for blood! All Wolves have increased damage, hit points, and size.
- and many others that demonstrate a sampling of upcoming mod functionality!
In addition to a number of official mods, you’ll also be able to try out other exciting changes and quality life improvements like:
- Global Build Queue
- Hotkey improvements
- MegaRandom
- …and much more!
Read up on all of the exciting content and changes by viewing the Release Notes here. You will need to be logged in with a Steam account that owns Age of Empires IV to view. This is located in the same forum where you will leave any feedback or report bugs during this Public Update Preview session.
Starting now, owners on Steam can access the Age IV PUP by following the instructions below:
- Navigate to your Steam library and right click on Age of Empires IV
- Select “Properties…” at the bottom of the menu
- Select the “BETAS” tab on the left
- In the “Select the beta…” dropdown menu, select “future_live”
- The build will begin downloading—once complete, you are ready to play!
Please note that replays in the PUP build are not compatible with the retail version. Players in the PUP version will only be able to match with those also on the PUP build. To revert back to retail, simply change your beta branch (step 4 above) back to “None.”
Join us – we’re excited to hear what you think!