Star Wars: Empire at War developer Petroglyph has returned to its 17-year-old real-time strategy game with a series of surprise updates.
2006’s Empire at War is set between Star Wars: Episode 3 – Revenge of the Sith and Star Wars: Episode 4 – A New Hope, and focuses on the fight between the Empire and the Rebels. Online functionality was canned back in 2014, but three years later multiplayer was re-enabled on the Steam version alongside workshop support.
Earlier in November 2023, Empire at War received a “maintenance patch” that made minor bug fixes, player balance changes, and optimised performance. Then this week, Petroglyph went one step further, issuing Empire at War’s most significant update in years.
The latest patch converted both Empire at War and expansion Forces of Corruption from 32-bit to 64-bit applications, which the developer said should solve many out-of-memory bugs and crashes that players were experiencing.
Elsewhere, Petroglyph has addressed multiplayer out-of-sync issues, which should improve stability, and made numerous gameplay fixes addressing balance and incorrect unit behaviour. There’s excitement, too, about the potential for renewed interest in modding with the switch to 64-bit.
Star Wars: Empire at War is certainly an old RTS at this point but it maintains a loyal playerbase, with around 2,000 concurrent players on Steam at any given moment. That’s certainly enough for multiplayer to function.
Fans are now wondering whether Petroglyph may have a remake or sequel up its sleeve, although it’s worth noting the developer has increased its attention on Empire at War in recent years. It’s certainly impressive to see such an old game supported all these years later. Petroglyph’s most recent releases are this year’s The Great War: Western Front for Frontier’s now-shuttered third-party publishing division, and 2020’s well-received Command & Conquer Remastered Collection.
Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.
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