Microsoft Releases Age of Empires: Castle Siege for iPhone, iPad

Along with Command & Conquer and StarCraft, Age of Empires has moulded the real-time strategy (RTS) genre on PC in the late 90s and early 2000s. And while the glory days of the RTS are far behind it, the fine folks at Smoking Gun Interactive think otherwise.

The studio was recruited by Microsoft to work on a spin-off to the highly successful franchise. This lead to last year's slick Age of Empires: Castle Siege on Windows and Windows Phone.

With a team consisting of key ex-staffers behind the Company of Heroes series, it was no surprise that Age of Empires: Castle Siege ended up being one of the more successful games on Windows and Windows Phone. It has you guiding a civilisation such as the Britons, Teutons, or Kievan Rus through the medieval ages.

Now the studio has brought the game to iOS and you can download it now. As is the norm, it's free-to-play and sports monetisation mechanics that have you purchasing in-game currency in order to speed up the construction of your empire, similar to Clash of Clans. It sports cross-platform play as well. What this means is those on Windows devices can play against iOS users in multiplayer mode. And if you're the sort who likes Microsoft's achievement system for Xbox 360 and Xbox One games, that's present as well, a welcome addition.

And while there's no Android edition in sight, we wouldn't put it past Smoking Gun and Microsoft to not release it on Google's mobile OS. In the past games like Wordament have made it to Android. Considering the scale and reach of Android, it's a question of when rather than if. But if you're on iOS, you can play it today.

Microsoft had earlier roped in Japan's KLab to develop Age of Empires for iOS and Android, but the status on that game is currently unknown what with last update from the developer in November 2014 signalling a 2015 release.