A strategy game from my childhood was dead for 19 years and is now getting a spiritual successor on Steam

MeinMMO author Ody has been a fan of real-time strategy games since childhood. After 19 years, one of his favorite series is making a comeback – at least in the form of a spiritual successor on Steam.

When I started playing video games at the age of 6 or 7, there were two formative RTS trilogies for me: One was Age of Empires, the other Empire Earth. While AoE still seems to be vibrant and alive, unfortunately, that cannot be said about Empire Earth.

Empire Earth 3 was released in 2007, and since then the series has been basically dead. At least the games are still available for purchase on GOG, but the graphics (with all due respect) have not aged well. A new RTS on Steam looks like it could fill that gap in my life.

Imperium Eternal (until recently Empire Eternal) is a new real-time strategy game from EPO Games and MicroProse Software. The game not only resembles Empire Earth in name but also looks exactly like I hoped a sequel would.

Here you see Imperium Eternal in the trailer:

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Imperium Eternal: Spiritual Successor of a 25-Year-Old RTS Gem in the Trailer

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An RTS with everything – From the Stone Age to the Future

Imperium Eternal builds on what made Empire Earth special back then, namely its enormous scope. Instead of focusing on a single era as in other real-time strategy games, you traverse all of them in Empire Earth (and then in Imperium Eternal): from the Stone Age to a possible future, all in just one game. You can think of it as Civilization, but as an RTS in the style of Age of Empires.

Who is writing here? The very first video game that Ody played on the PC was the first Age of Empires. This sparked a love for RTS that has never completely faded. Today, however, he plays all kinds of strategy games, but still particularly enjoys Age of Empires and the Total War series.

While the story campaigns of Empire Earth (which did exist) never really excited me, I had a lot of fun with simple skirmish battles.

The progress through the eras not only had visual effects but also gameplay effects: While I only commanded club-wielders and slingers at the beginning, by the end of a match, I was commanding destructive bombers – even cyborgs and battle robots in the last era.

The release is likely still far away

Imperium Eternal seems to offer everything that made Empire Earth great – but looks significantly better. Yet, there are things that concern me. Imperium Eternal has been in development for at least three, maybe even four years. That’s at least how long it’s been since the first video was uploaded to the official YouTube channel for the game.

There is still no release date, even if it were just a year away. And even the developers only occasionally share behind-the-scenes looks, perhaps every few months. It all still feels like a dream – a dream that could burst at any moment.

Still, I want to remain optimistic for now. Imperium Eternal already looks like a worthy spiritual successor to Empire Earth. The developers just need to deliver what they promise.