Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition
Worth it · Strategy · 2020
Steam Deck UnsupportedThe verdict
BUY IT.
Worth it at $34.99.
- Length
- 21.9h
- Value
- $1.60/hr
- Reviews
- 86% positive
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Minimum on the Steam store: 8 GB of memory, 42 GB of storage. Windows only.
Lead powerful civilizations across the globe, master strategies and tactics, and relive history in co op battles—now remastered in stunning 4K and modernized gameplay.
What drives the score
How to read this
Every input gets a grade, S to D, read from the buyer's side. The score is multiplicative, so an input only counts as raising when it sits near the top of its own scale. Anything with real room left is holding the score back, because that room is the gap to 100. ▲ marks a lift, ▼ a drag or a dock, ? an input we do not have, • a fact this genre's score does not use. The exact weights stay secret.
The value story
It has never been cheaper than $34.99. That was August 2026. In 41 days of price history it has never once been discounted.
On value it sits in the top 3 percent of its genre. It is pricier than 98 percent of its genre, and better reviewed than 90 percent. Among the games that feel like it, Age of Empires IV: Anniversary Edition ($39.99, scores 73) beats it on value, while it beats War Selection (free, scores 63).
Critics scored it 75. Players sit 11 points higher at 86 percent, which usually means a game that plays better than it reviews.
1 of the 800 Steam-purchase reviews sampled here comes from a buyer who refunded the game, sampled from reviews written March 2024 to September 2026. Inside the two-hour refund window, 54 percent of the 2,652 reviews written there were positive, against 86 percent overall, and those are 7 percent of everything written about it. It sells extras on top of the sticker price (cosmetic); the score docks it lightly for that.
Finishing takes 21.9 hours; clearing it takes 92, which is 4.2 times the campaign.
It came out 6 years ago and 3.0K were still playing it at the last check.
The drop-off
70% start to <1% rarestNo achievement in this game marks the ending, so there is no finish rate. The curve runs from the most-unlocked achievement to the rarest, and its shape is where players stop. Steam global achievements
Players
3,016 players at peak in the last day.
The chart appears once this game has been counted more than once.Player counts via SteamSpy.
What players say
The Moment i realised that they removed the levelling system IN SINGLEPLAYER, i deinstalled and never installed again. unfortunately. I really wanted to buy some of the new Civs DLCs. but now, i have no incentive anymore to play this game.
Player reviews from Steam: the most helpful all-time, plus the newest that clear the same quality bar, with the hours each player had put in when they wrote it. The mix of Recommended and Not recommended follows the game's Steam ratio. Rotates daily. Opinions are theirs.
Cite this score
Embed the live badge, copy the line, or download the card.
Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition scores 70/100 on the BANG Score (worth it). The BANG Score rates what a game is worth for the money. Via Steam BANGERS. https://steambangers.com/game/933110/age-of-empires-iii-definitive-editionThe BANG Score is one number for value, 0 to 100: price against how it reviews and how long it was built to be. It answers the money question and stops there; whether the game is for you is still your call.
Reviews set the ceiling and price moves you inside it, so a cheap game that reviews badly cannot climb. Ratings from few reviewers are shrunk toward the middle, so 100 percent from nine people does not outrank 96 percent from ninety thousand. Length comes from HowLongToBeat where it can be matched, measured against a per-genre floor so a five-hour narrative game is judged against other narrative games rather than against a sixty-hour RPG. Where no verified length exists the score says so and carries a dock, because the biggest input is then a guess. The full method, including where it is weak → Steam reviews as of Sep 14, price as of Sep 24.
A number here look wrong? Tell me what it got wrong and I will look at the inputs behind it.