Choose Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition
Choose Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition if you want the LAN PvP side of the pairing. 18,417 Steam reviews back the pick.
Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition vs War Selection
Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition and War Selection both land in Strategy, Free To Play on Steam, which is why they keep getting compared. The comparison below is built from each game's Steam metadata — release year, genres, categories, Steam Deck status, price, and review score — refreshed daily by imho.run's scraper. Headline differences: Both share Strategy, Free To Play on Steam. War Selection (2019) is 1 year older than Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition (2020). Both sit near 84% positive on Steam (Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition: 18,417 reviews, War Selection: 7,368). No login or purchase needed — scroll for the full table, the verdict FAQ, and links to ranked similar games for both titles.
Which should you pick?
Choose War Selection
Choose War Selection if you want an Indie, Massively Multiplayer, and Early Access experience. 7,368 Steam reviews back the pick.
Both Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition and War Selection sit in Strategy and Free To Play on Steam and both list Multi-player, Online PvP, and PvP, so either pick lands in the same broad neighborhood. Steam reviews are nearly tied (84.5% vs 83.9% positive), so genre fit is the cleanest tiebreaker — scroll the table for the feature-by-feature view.
Side-by-side comparison
 Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition |  War Selection | |
|---|---|---|
| Released | 2020 | 2019 |
| Genres | Strategy, Free To Play | Strategy, Indie, Massively Multiplayer, Free To Play, Early Access |
| Platforms | Windows | Windows, Linux |
| Steam Deck | Deck Playable | Deck Playable |
| Price | Free to play | Free to play |
| Steam reviews | 84.5% positive (18,417 reviews) | 83.9% positive (7,368 reviews) |
| Multiplayer | Multi-player, Cross-Platform Multiplayer | Multi-player |
| Developers | World's Edge, Tantalus Media, Forgotten Empires | Glyph Worlds |
Side by side
- Both share Strategy, Free To Play on Steam.
- War Selection (2019) is 1 year older than Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition (2020).
- Both sit near 84% positive on Steam (Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition: 18,417 reviews, War Selection: 7,368).
- Both are free to play.
- Both are Deck Playable.
Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition vs War Selection — FAQ
- Which is better, Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition or War Selection?
- On Steam reviews the two are nearly tied: Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition sits at 84.5% positive (18,417 reviews), War Selection at 83.9% (7,368). The choice usually comes down to genre fit and the platform features each one supports — see the comparison table above.
- Should I play Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition or War Selection first?
- If you want chronology, War Selection (2019) came out before Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition (2020). If neither is a sequel to the other, order doesn't really matter — start with whichever fits your current mood, since both share enough on Steam to make either a reasonable opener.
- Are Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition and War Selection similar?
- They overlap on Strategy, Free To Play on Steam, so the catalogue groups them together — but "similar" depends on the specific mechanics. Use the genre + category rows above to decide whether the overlap matches what drew you to the one you've already played.