Age of Empires 3: Definitive Edition gets a Steam hotfix to patch up memory leak
Playing Age of Empires 3: DE on Steam and seeing crashes? This might help.
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What you need to know
Age of Empires 3: Definitive Editionhas been released for just more than two weeks, and it has now — at least on the Steam side — received its third update. Hotfix 5025 aims to clear up a memory leak some Steam users were seeing; Microsoft Store and Game Pass users don’t seem to be affected by the issue. The leak could cause the game to crash, and there were some rare cases of users with installed mods seeing player profile corruption.
Now live: Steam-only hotfix for Age of Empires III: DE to address a memory leak specific to that version. Steam users can download now, Windows Store users will have these fixes in next week’s update. Crossplay temporarily unavailable:https://t.co/XW9ZfS8v8ypic.twitter.com/Gg1j8M24C1Now live: Steam-only hotfix for Age of Empires III: DE to address a memory leak specific to that version. Steam users can download now, Windows Store users will have these fixes in next week’s update. Crossplay temporarily unavailable:https://t.co/XW9ZfS8v8ypic.twitter.com/Gg1j8M24C1— AgeOfEmpires (@AgeOfEmpires)October 30, 2020October 30, 2020
The hotfix also addresses a crash that some people were experiencing while playing through the story mode mission “The Siege of Osaka.” Because the Steam version and the Microsoft Store version now have different builds, cross-play has been temporarily disabled. The versions are expected to be able to play together again following another update.
And a larger update is expected next week for all versions of the game. The dev team is focusing on furthering its crash eradication, smoothing out cinematics (some would cause the game to hang), and having player ELO ranking stats show in casual lobbies. As for the Microsoft Store version, work is being done to properly show mods in the built-in browser, as well work on player names showing up correctly during matches.
The Age team does note that following this Steam hotfix, custom mods might not work properly. If you’re seeing any wonk, it’s recommended you disable any installed mods until further notice.
More Age of Empires is always a good thing
With new 4K graphics, rebalanced gameplay, and new content like additional civilizations, historical battles, and more culturally-accurate depictions, Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition should make older fans happy and draw in curious newcomers with ease.
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Cale Hunt brings to Windows Central more than eight years of experience writing about laptops, PCs, accessories, games, and beyond. If it runs Windows or in some way complements the hardware, there’s a good chance he knows about it, has written about it, or is already busy testing it.
