Going to assume that 3 will happen at some point and swapping engines is no small task for an already released project so I'm going to assume 1 will happen after it has swapped its engine to 2's engine, I don't think they'll go through that much effort if they don't have future plans for it.

This event was just fun.

News with fun, I was vibing to that band, Lol.

And Idk, Age felt significant with that event, like Microsoft is saying "this IP is a big deal to us" which is nice, it feels like genuine care.

Those are some good announcements.
Shame that AoM isn't launching on console as well but I guess they are busy enough with porting those two games in 2023. I hope it will come to Xbox 6-12 months after PC launch.
Also AoE 3 DE is definitely still missing. I agree that the priority isn't as high as AoE 2 and 4 but I seriously hope for a port in 2024. As for the Definitive Edition of the first AoE.... I don't think they need to port that one. Compared to the others it was a pretty low effort job.

Haven't played any of them, but will try them out. Tried Civilization but couldn't get into it.

Yep. It was pretty heartbreaking to see Ensemble Studios closed. 

So great to see the turn around. 

Oh no need to worry about that. Age is nothing like Civilization. Age is a real-time strategy franchise, similar to StarCraft but in a historical setting.

You pick a civilization to play as, then it's all about making villagers to gather resources like food, wood, gold, and stone. Except in Age 3, they removed stone as a resource. Use your resources to have your villagers make buildings such as farms and barracks, make a military, upgrade your buildings and military units, build a navy if it's a water map, level up an age which costs a lot of resources (stone age to bronze age for example) to get further upgrades to quicken resource gathering and stronger military units, then conquer your enemies. That's the basic gist of it.

Each civ has its own perks whether that be in military units or infrastructure. Which is part of the fun in seeing which civ works best for you. 

Age of Mythology, while a spin-off, is a special one because although the basic gameplay is the same, it goes into Egyptian, Greek, and Norse mythology. An expansion added Atlanteans to the mix as well. And it had huge hero units. So that's why we're really excited for that remake! 

Update to 2023.

• Age of Empires II Definitive Edition Xbox Port - January 31st.
• Ghostwire Tokyo - March 25th.
• Redfall - First Half 2023.
• Ara History Untold - First Half 2023.
• Starfield - First Half 2023.
• Minecraft Legends - Spring 2023.
• Forza Motorsport - Spring 2023.
• Age of Empires IV Xbox Port - 2023.

Stacking up nicely.

To this day, I still don't think we know the reason as to why Ensemble was closed but their legacy will now forever live on. 

The Halo MMO financially ruined them, IIRC, Lol.

I'd also add the ripple effects from the 08 Recession.  Gaming wasn't impervious to its dramatic effects and everyone was looking to remove any financial dead weight.