The recently announced Chronicles: Battle for Greece campaign expansion for Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition promises a completely different experience compared to previous content packs that have entered the game. Taking players to the ancient world for the first time, the expansion touts a 21-scenario campaign, new civilizations, hordes of new units, and a lot more.
Developer CaptureAge detailed the major naval battle features it"s adding to the game last week. This week, more information has landed on the visual overhauls for units; the brand-new dialog players will be hearing plenty of "historical flavor" and some scenario details.
As part of the unit visual overhauls, the ones that are shared between the new Achaemenids, Athenians and Spartans factions have all received their models and names. In addition to regional units like the Achaemenid Immortal or Greek Hoplites, newly-designed campaign exclusive units like Cretan Archers, Scythian Axe Cavalry, and Rhodian Slingers are incoming with the expansion too.
CaptureAge adds that the campaign will offer scenarios that have "vivid recreations" of famous battles from the fifth century BCE, like Marathon, Thermopylae, and Salamis. "We’ve creatively represented numerous features of the period: you’ll have to undermine the walls of Miletus with sapper tunnels, demand and collect tribute from the increasingly dissatisfied members of the Athenian empire and flush rebellious agitators from helot villages as the Spartans," the studio adds.
As for the dialog, the studio says that players will hear "epic poems and mythological stories" when these ancient characters speak, alongside plenty of authentic insults from the period. "A particularly spine-tingling example is Leonidas, fighting until the end at Thermopylae, echoing the Spartan war poet Tyrtaeus’s exhortation to “make life your enemy and hold the black spirits of death dear as the rays of the sun," the studio continues.
Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition — Chronicles: Battle for Greece expansion launches November 14 on Steam and Microsoft Store for PC and Xbox console players. Pre-orders are available now for $12.74, thanks to a 15% early discount.