Even though Age of Empires 2 released back in 1999, its HD remake is still under active development! But rather than simply settle for a couple of patches here and there, the developers have just announced the fourth expansion - Rise of the Rajas.

It will bring with it four new civilizations: Burmese which come with a new ranged cavalry unit; Khmer whose unique unit is an elephant with a balista glued on top; Malay which feature an extremely cheap and dispensable infantry unit that can be used to quickly overwhelm the enemy; and Vietnamese which bring with them a heavily armored ranged unit that's effectively immune to archer fire. And naturally, each of these newly added civilizations will come with their own fully voiced campaigns, though I would assume they are going to be on the shorter side of things.

Besides features unique to these four factions we also have two new generic units: the Battle Elephant which is a slow and powerful cavalry unit that can also hold its own in melee combat, as well as the Imperial Skirmisher - an upgrade to the rather awesome Elite Skirmisher unit. You can also expect to see improved AI, five new random maps, five new special maps, five new real world maps, thirteen new terrains, a spectator mode, and a couple of other minor features.

As for the release date, its a lot sooner than you might expect given that Rise of the Rajas is set to arrive on December 19 at €10 price tag. If you would like to learn more I would suggest you head over to Steam. And as a final note, here's a couple of images showcasing the new units and locations: