Microsoft will release Age of Empires for Windows and WP next month

Microsoft announced Age of Empires: Castle Siege on Monday for Windows 8.1 and Windows Phone. The game, which focuses on attacking and storming castles, will be released next month.

Developer Smoking Gun Interactive has been working on the game lately. Precise details are missing, but Microsoft already posted a video clip online on Monday in which Age of Empires can be seen briefly. The images show how players can build and expand castles. The fortresses can then be attacked and taken with ladders and towers.

Microsoft has announced that the game is intended for touchscreen operation and is free-to-play, fans site WPCentral said. The latter presumably means that players will be presented with advertisements or can perform microtransactions for items and expansion, whereby the question here again is whether there will be a pay-to-win situation.

Age of Empires: Castle Siege is not the first title for mobile devices in the well-known PC series. Earlier, Microsoft announced Age of Empires: World Domination. This game, developed by the Japanese studio KLab, will be released this fall for iOS, Android and Windows Phone.

In addition to Age of Empires, earlier this year, other well-known names from old PC franchises were also given a new title. For example, the old well-known Dungeon Keeper came out for iOS and Android, although that title did not receive a warm reception from gamers due to the excessive use of microtransactions. Atari, in turn, came up with a mobile version of Rollercoaster Tycoon, which has since been released for iOS devices.