The original Age of Empires 3 is being pulled from sale at the end of the month

Tom Regan, Contributing Editor

October 10, 2024

1 Min Read

Xbox Games Studio/ Relic Entertainment

Age of Empires 3 is being delisted on October 30th, 17 years after its release. Taking to Steam, Xbox Game Studios announced that the beloved PC release will also have its servers shuttered on the same date.

“After many years of support, we will be retiring the title from sale,” Xbox Game Studios says. “In addition, on October 30, 2024 multiplayer services for the game will cease to run. This is due to the technology no longer being supported.”

Age of Empires 3 will still work offlinePlayers who already own the game will still be able to play the 2007 original offline after October 30th, with the campaign and skirmish content still functioning as intended. The move will not affect Age of Empires 3: Definitive Edition, with fans of the multiplayer being encouraged to move over to that version.

October has proven to be a bad month for fans of classic games, with Sony announcing that LittleBigPlanet 3—and all the series DLC—will be delisted by the end of the month. The move comes amid wider concerns around game preservation, with fears that without a concerted effort from publishers, an increasing number of games will be lost to time.

Alongside Definitive Editions repackaging the original entries in the beloved RTS franchise , 2021’s Age of Empires IV was the series’ last mainline release with spin off Age of Mythology remade for PC and Xbox and released last month.

About the Author

Contributing Editor, Game Developer

Tom Regan is a freelance journalist covering games, music and technology from London, England. The former Games Editor at Wikia’s Fandom, Tom is now a regular critic and reporter at The Guardian, specialising in telling the human stories behind game development. You can read his writing on games in the newspaper, as well as his musings on technology and pop culture in outlets like NME, Metal Hammer, Gamesradar, VGC and EDGE, to name but a few.