‘Tis the season for player-run servers, right? And we’ve got another for you to take a peek at: It’s for Age of Empires Online, which you’ll recall launched way back in 2011 but sunsetted just a few years later in 2014.
But all was not lost, as last year, a group of players took advantage of Microsoft’s public dev-kit to rescue the game from sunset and put it back online as a not-for-profit emulator dubbed Project Celeste.
Most recently, the player team behind the revitalized strategy MMO has pumped out a big expansion with a new region, 15 new quests, new year, and a new in-game store. An offline mode is also available. The team has a rather massive roadmap planned for the year. This is more content than some live MMORPGs get. Love it.
Source: Project Celeste. Thanks, Brandon!