‘Star Wars: Empire at War’ Still Receiving Updates on Steam More Than 17 Years Later
The classic Star Wars RTS game, Star Wars: Empire at War, received a major update on Steam from developer Petroglyph. Star Wars: Empire at War, and its expansion, Forces of Corruption, was originally released back in 2006, more than 17 years ago.
The latest update was completed on November 20. The biggest change with the update is that the game and its expansion have now been converted to a 64-bit application. Aside from performance and technical enhancements, many are hopeful that this change will bring back modders to the game, now that it has been converted to 64-bit.
The latest update notes have been made available below:
Minor bug fixes, player balance changes and optimized performance, the most important fixes are:
▪ Both games have been converted from 32-bit to 64-bit applications, which will solve many out-of-memory bugs and crashes that players were experiencing.
▪ Multiplayer out-of-sync issues have been addressed, which should improve stability.
▪ There have been numerous gameplay fixes addressing balance and incorrect unit behavior.
Star Wars: Empire at War appears to still be alive and active even after 17 years. At the time of writing, the game has 1,500 people currently playing. The latest news will likely soon bump that number up even further. It also appears that the community has also made large-scale mods for the game that bring in Clone Wars-era content that wasn’t there in the original release.
Whether this is a sign of a possible remaster or sequel is still unclear. Developer Petroglyph’s most recent game is The Great War: Western Front, which was released this year. However, Petroglyph was also responsible for the well-received Command & Conquer Remastered Collection which included the enhanced version of Command & Conquer and Command & Conquer: Red Alert. So Petroglyph is no stranger to remastering classic RTS titles.
It should also be noted that rumors of a new Star Wars RTS game have been swirling. But there has been no further word on this. Outside of the RTS genre, it has also been confirmed that new developer Bit Reactor is working on a Star Wars strategy/tactics game, possibly similar in line with games like X-Com and Marvel’s Midnight Suns.
Born and raised in Hawaii, Jay Goodearl runs the YouTube Gaming channel “Good Games, Dude” His channel aims to open up video games to beginners and immediate players and help them understand what makes games the art form that it is.
