It's been almost a year since Age Of Empires 2: Definitive Edition was released, and to celebrate its first birthday, the strategy remaster is getting one hell of an anniversary update. Next month's massive update will add new features and balance tweaks, as well as a veritable battle royale mode for the old-school RTS.

Eight civilizations parachute down to the island. The last nation standing wins.

Up to eight players, randomly placed on the map, start the battle royale with only a few soldiers. Fortunately, these soldiers can occupy military installations and resource camps scattered throughout the level, gradually escalating the size of the army, with AI-controlled guardians and, of course, other players.

While the battle royale craze seems to have died down, I'm still fascinated to see this mode wrapped up in an entirely different genre. At the very least, "AoE2" will be an interesting one. To showcase this new mode, 16 streamers and pro players will take part in a $10,000 Age Royale tournament this Saturday at 11 a.m. Eastern Time / 3 p.m. Japan time.

The anniversary update will also bring significant changes to the front end of the game, with a largely revamped main menu. A new "Quickplay" mode will allow players to join matchmaking queues for all types of unranked play, and the social menu has been updated to make it easier to add friends to the game.

Finally, Civilization's UI has been redesigned to make it easier to discern the strengths and weaknesses of any faction at a glance. There are also a number of balance adjustments planned, and full patch notes for these will be available next month near the release of the November update.