Age of Empires 3: Definitive Edition has just received a new patch, but it has already run into problems. The patch notes themselves are benign – some custom hotkey profiles, various tweaks and bugfixes, but nothing out of the ordinary. Nevertheless, the game’s state on Steam has been rolled back while the developers look into reports concerning the recently introduced US civilisation.
Some players have noted that their progress in the 50 state challenge has been reset post-patch. As a reminder, Age of Empires 3 players can unlock the new US civ for free provided they complete a series of 50 in-game challenges, each one themed around a specific US state. Once you’ve done all of them, you’re be able to play the new US civ for free, although it’s also available as a premium DLC.
The free path however is only going to be available for a limited amount of time. While Forgotten Empires has stated it would give plenty of notice as to when the promotion will end, you can only complete three challenges a day. You’re going to need a minimum of 17 days just to see everything through to the end. Having your progress reset to zero will perhaps interfere with this.
At the time of writing, the development team is still investigating the issue, and has urged anyone who’s lost progress to submit a ticket via the official support forum.
Meanwhile, because the Steam version has been rolled back, multiplayer between that and the Windows 10 version of the game has been disabled, so in the short term you’ll need to make sure you and your friends are all using the same version of the game. If you own Games Pass for PC, Age of Empires 3 is available as part of that subscription.
It’s not been out long, but the playerbase already thinks the US civ is a bit OP in how it’s been designed. Age of Empires 3 is also due to get another expansion later this year, themed around African civilisations.
Related: What we know about the Age of Empires 4 release date
We’ll keep you posted if there are any further updates.