The water effect in Age of Empires: Definitive Edition is the best example of this. While being 2D at heart, graphics have come a long way since 1997 and 3D effects have found their way into 2D games. This doesn’t mean however that the game does not use 3D effects at all. Which certainly does a lot in making the game feel 3D, while still staying 2D! Where the original units would only turn in 8 directions, units now try to path their way through the game showcasing 32 directions. What is behind a building doesn’t exist, because it is not rendered out 🙂 But the units can certainly rotate for you. This means that what you see in the game is what you get. What’s happening is that we’re creating all our units, buildings and trees as 3D models, but then render them out as 2D images.
Modern tricks on top of the recognizable 2D engine results in a 3D look, but it’s still 2D at heart. When we started development on Age of Empires: Definitive Edition, we started building further on this original engine as well.
It certainly does look 3D! In our work to bring Age of Empires to modern devices, we used the same 2 dimensional isometric engine that is so recognisable from the original Age of Empires and Age of Empires II games. Our art team took the question as a compliment, as the game is in fact 2D, just like the original Age of Empires. Ever since the first screenshots of Age of Empires: Definitive Edition have been released into the wild, one of the most frequently asked questions has been: “Is this a 2D game or a 3D game?”.
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