Microsoft began the surprising endeavor of porting its first-party developed Xbox games over to its rival Sony"s PlayStation platform earlier this year. The first announcement only had four games in the porting lineup, with Sea of Thieves, Grounded, Hi-Fi Rush, and Pentiment receiving staggered releases over to PlayStation 4 and 5 consoles.
The company has since been rather silent about bringing more of its back catalog over to PlayStation fans. However, a leak may have revealed at least one of the games Microsoft is porting over.
Recently, an image posted on the Age of Empires II subreddit by "draconis90" showed an interesting platform icon appear on two players in a lobby. The Definitive Edition of the game shows which network any player is joining on, whether it be Steam or Xbox. However, the image shows the familiar symbol of PlayStation Network instead.
The appearance could have been because of a visual bug. But the icon"s existence as an option in the game"s code for the player"s network should be enough of an indicator to reveal that at least internal testing is going on for a PlayStation version of the hugely popular real-time strategy game. It"s anyone"s guess as to when will this version release though.
The original Age of Empires II by Ensemble Studios released in 1999 for Windows. Many may not know though that it also received a PlayStation 2 version in 2001, with Konami doing the porting duties. Meanwhile, the enhanced Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition launched for Windows in 2019, but an Xbox console version landed with full controller support in 2023. It even features cross-play support with PC players.
Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition continues to receive updates too, with a brand-new campaign featuring a fresh setting and historical age releasing later this month.