Age of Empires IV: Anniversary Edition should now be a lot easier to play on Steam Deck / Steam Machine and anyone using a gamepad - with the new controller UI. This is really great to see to make the game more accessible to a wider audience.
Coming as part of Patch 16.2.10604 released June 1st, they announced:
Controller UI on PC
Starting with this patch, you can now switch between the standard PC mouse and keyboard UI and the controller UI on Steam or Microsoft Store! This includes access to controller-specific features like the Site Menu System and Villager Priority System.
With this change, we’ll also be delivering the same player experience found on the consoles optimized for certain handheld devices, including:
- Steam Deck
- ROG Xbox Ally
- ROG Xbox Ally X
- ASUS ROG Ally
- ASUS ROG Ally X
Testing it with the new Steam Controller on my Fedora KDE 44 Desktop using Proton 11 and it's not exactly the smoothest experience. On first-run, you're forced into a tutorial match and it doesn't allow you to change the control method here. So you have to quit to the menu, then go into controls, then manually change the drop-down to gamepad. After that, the game needs restarting to change the UI mode.
Once done - it works as expected, and does feel a lot nicer to attempt to play it. The Steam Controller works great with it. Needs you to re-learn the UI though since it is very different for controllers.
Pictured - Age of Empires IV: Anniversary Edition on Fedora KDE with the controller UI
Hopefully they'll make the initial run and detection smoother - offer the option to use it when a gamepad is detected instead of forcing you to swap manually. Dynamic swapping between them like other games would be good.
They also recently announced the Raiders of the North DLC coming sometime this "Fall":
Direct Link
It's currently 65% off on Steam until June 16th, so this is the perfect time to grab it.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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