Age of Empires 2 has always held a place in my heart and on my HDD throughout the years. It has been a shining beacon for the series, to the classical RTS genre and to PC gaming on the whole. The definitive edition is no exception with updates in all the right places.

The first thing you can note from the trailers is just how gorgeous this game has become. The satisfaction from destroying an enemy castle cannot be understated when you can actually watch it crumble to the ground. This, along with a handful of crucial quality of life improvements allow DE to be legitimately held up against other modern RTS games.

If your new to the genre, the gameplay may have a slightly steeper learning curve than many other games, and this is true for most RTS. However, DE now has extensive tutorials, allowing you to, step by step, try your hand at the same kinds of strategies you are sure to encounter online.

Speaking of multiplayer. The bugs and baggage that is all part of bringing a relic like this to the modern web have been all but completely annihilated! To support this, there is an amazing community that has persisted with this game through thick and thin.

If online isn't your thing, I am one of those that will vouch whole heatedly for the single player campaigns, and there are now a multitude of them! Start anywhere you like, just pick any part of the world and there is a historical themed campaign waiting for you. Each a self-contained handful of missions with varying difficulty but equally charming.

The best part is that the game is being updated regularly and nurtured by the devs. With new content, balancing, patches and the biggest tournaments the game has ever seen before in its long history.

TLDR - If you like knights, building things or strategy, this one is for you.