Stardock Entertainment announced that they will collaborate with and publish BonusXP’s upcoming strategy game. A strategy game from this developer is good news, because Bonus XP was founded by former Age of Empires developer, Ensemble Studios. According to the developer, their upcoming strategy game is using Stardock’s Project Tachyon initiative, a cloud-based metagaming infrastructure, developed by Battle.net engineer Adrian Luff. This project allows easy implementation of matchmaking and league play, cloud-hosted multiplayer contests and web-powered progress tracking among others.
According to Stardock, their deal with BonusXP fits their philosophy of investing in talented studios and experienced developers. The publisher says that they are putting money in the hands of talented creators because they believe that these people hold the future of gaming in their minds, and they only need the resources to turn it into reality.
BonusXP is an independent studio founded by veteran developers who used to have important positions in the teams that created Age of Empires, Age of Mythology and Halo Wars. Until now, BonusXP has worked mostly on mobile games, such as Cavemania and Monster Crew. The developer also praises Stardock, stating that this publisher is a partner that doesn’t support the mentality of releasing endless sequels for the sake of milking initially succesful franchises. The people at BonusXP also state that the partnership with Stardock allows them to join forces with another team of veteran developers and create the greatest possible game.
Considering all of these, Age of Empires fans should be thrilled. The people at BonusXP have worked on the successful strategy franchise and are aware of what they need to do in order to give fans a great game. Currently, there are no actual details about the strategy game they are preparing, since, as they state themselves, the game will be announced at a later date.