Nearly 21 years after its release, Age of Empires 2 may be having its best year ever, and while the game has steadily increased its average player count since its HD re-release in 2013, last year's Age of Empires 2: Definitive edition was released and the COVID-19 lockdown has inflated the industry-wide player count, Age of Empires 2 boasts a tally that beats some very well-known games. Currently the most popular RTS on Steam, the Definitive Edition and 2013 HD Edition have more players than its closest competitor, Company of Heroes 2. This year's massive tournament saw the largest prize pool for Age of Empires 1v1 since 2002.

Last month in April, the game's total average player count exceeded 50,000; April 12 was the all-time peak for the definitive version, with 59,995 total players for the game. This puts the game in the top 150 of Steam's all-time peak player counts... .for a game that is 21 years old.

The average player count for these two games is higher than the popular free-to-play game "War Thunder" and industry darling "Stardew Valley". They are on par with the popular action RPG Path of Exile. The average player count is nearly tied with perennially popular premium games like Civilization VI and Terraria.Both versions of Age of Empires 2 are ranked in Steam's Top 100 games, with Definitive Edition in 25th place The Age of Empires 2 is ranked 25th. However, the Age of Empires community combined averages 15th place or higher on peak player days.

To give you an idea of the scale at work here, Age of Empires 2 has sold about 1.5 million copies in the three years since its release in North America. Last year, the studio that developed the game announced that one million people a month were playing Age of Empires games. [Age of Empires 2: Definitive Edition] was released last year and our own Fraser Brown is quite fond of it. Age of Empires 4 is in development and will be released after 2020.