The release of Age of Empires 2: Definitive Edition has practically rendered all of the previous releases obsolete. Including every bit of content ever created for the popular RTS title along with visual and AI improvements, there was little reason for professional players to stick with the 1999 original or the 2013 HD Edition. One third-party program was holding some players back from making the jump, though.
This brings us to today's post. Microsoft has announced that is has partnered with the team responsible for "Capture Age," a tool used during Age of Empire 2 competitions. An overlay for tournament streams that displays a ton of useful information, it wasn't compatible with last year's release of Definitive Edition. This prevented some diehards from jumping over since they wouldn't be able to properly stream all of their relevant information easily.
Soon, that will be a thing of the past. As developer World's Edge wrote, "We are proud to officially announce the partnership between World's Edge and Capture Age. Capture Age is a ground-breaking spectating tool that completely changed how you can watch, enjoy, and analyze Age of Empires: II. Today we can confirm that Capture Age will be coming to Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition."
The previously available versions were only compatible with the original release, which was obviously not optimal for modern displays. With a maximum resolution of 800x600, it made things incredibly quaint and kind of blurry on HD screens. With Definitive Edition pushing the visuals up to 4K, there is going to be a lot more information present that Capture Age can display.
The post over on the official Age of Empires site goes into more detail, but it's not hard to see how beneficial this will be for tournaments. With the rise of streaming not showing any signs of slowing down, having this kind of a tool readily available in the best version of Age of Empires 2 will make things a whole lot easier for everyone.
We don't have an exact timeframe for when this new update will hit Definitive Edition, but at least it will be officially supported. That should ensure maximum compatibility whenever it does land.
Source: World's Edge