“Spirit Of The Law” has been making AoE videos for over 7 years, but although he still sees hope for the game, he is now putting the fourth part to rest for now.
The YouTube career of (Spirit Of The Law) is largely based on his expert videos for the second part of the Age of Empires series. While its initial release was over twenty years ago, it has been continuously improved with the HD version of 2013 as well as the Definitive Edition of 2019, keeping it alive.
Like many other fans, he may have held out hope that Age of Empires 4 could replace the ageing masterpiece. But after a few months of focusing on the new game, he now let his community know in a video message that he’s putting it to rest for the time being and will return to the classic entirely.
Only recently we reported that Hera – one of the best AoE 2 players – is almost completely withdrawing from the scene after the disappointment of the fourth part and is switching to League of Legends instead:
Decreased video frequency is not AoE 4’s fault
Spirit Of The Law has managed what hardly any publisher would believe on paper: he creates videos about a twenty-year-old game and up to two million people are interested. In his most-viewed work, he puts the developer’s claim that the Definitive Edition AI would easily win against seven opponents with the old AI to the test.
Of the 473 videos on his channel, 157 alone specifically revolve around individual game mechanics of the strategy game. It is not uncommon for them to deal specifically with the formulas behind the mechanics, because the Canadian is currently doing his Master’s degree in mathematics on the side and thus combines hobby and education to a certain extent.
Together with his move to the next but one Canadian state, this is also the main reason why he uploads almost half as many videos. It’s not Age of Empires 4’s fault and he’s not losing interest in YouTube either: “I don’t want you to think this state of affairs is permanent.”
That he is now turning away from the game has several reasons and one of them is that the number of active players has now fallen below that of the second part. He emphasised that the numbers were emblematic of the open construction sites of the game, but that the game should not be written off yet.
A residual hope remains
However, he doesn’t want to go into detail here about why the player numbers for AoE 4 have fallen below those of AoE 2. He was confident that part 4 could still improve and referred to the promising roadmap for the next 6 months.
He hoped that over time the game would feel less like Early Access and would then attract new players with discounts of between 50 and 75 per cent. He would also welcome a DLC with a popular civilisation such as the Byzantines.
He suspects that the developers are also worried by the sight of these graphs and wants to limit himself to videos of the second part of the series for the time being. However, he would keep a watchful eye on the further development of Age of Empires 4 and could imagine a return if Microsoft and Relic were to successfully turn the tide.
Finally, he asked his community for a little patience: with a DLC for the Definitive Edition of AoE 2 possibly coming out soon, he had already set new goals for the channel and was only kept from pursuing them now by his move.
What do you think of the situation? Do you still wish the fourth part would be good enough to replace the venerable second, or do you prefer the status quo in the end? Share your thoughts with us in the comments!
