Forgotten Empires is an American

video game developer A video game developer is a software developer specializing in video game development – the process and related disciplines of creating video games. A game developer can range from one person who undertakes all tasks to a large business with em ...

based in

Cincinnati Cincinnati ( ; colloquially nicknamed Cincy) is a city in Hamilton County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. Settled in 1788, the city is located on the northern side of the confluence of the Licking River (Kentucky), Licking and Ohio Ri ...

Ohio Ohio ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Erie to the north, Pennsylvania to the east, West Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Indiana to the ...

. It was founded by Bert Beeckman and Ryan Shepherd in 2013. It specializes in creating

real-time strategy Real-time strategy (RTS) is a Video game genre, subgenre of strategy video games that does not progress incrementally in turn-based game, turns, but allow all players to play simultaneously, in "real time." By contrast, in Turn-based strategy, tur ...

(RTS) games, particularly within the historical genre. Their contributions include the development of expansions and remastering of ''

Age of Empires ''Age of Empires'' is a series of historical real-time strategy video games, originally developed by Ensemble Studios and published by Xbox Game Studios. The first title in the series, ''Age of Empires'', focused on events in Europe, Afri ...

'' titles. In June 2022, Forgotten Empires was acquired by Keywords Studios.

History

Forgotten Empires originated as a group of gamers who began working on a modification for ''

Age of Empires II ''Age of Empires II: The Age of Kings'' is a real-time strategy video game developed by Ensemble Studios and published by Microsoft. Released in 1999 for Microsoft Windows and Macintosh in 2001, it is the second game in the ''Age of Empires'' s ...

'' in 2012. Around the same time,

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company, technology conglomerate headquartered in Redmond, Washington. Founded in 1975, the company became influential in the History of personal computers#The ear ...

was in the process of creating a remastered HD edition of ''Age of Empires II''. The mod was successful, prompting Microsoft to collaborate with the group to transform their project into an official expansion. This collaboration was announced in June 2013, with Microsoft revealing Forgotten Empires' involvement in the ongoing development of '' Age of Empires II: HD Edition''. Subsequently, in collaboration with SkyBox Labs, the expansion titled ''Age of Empires II HD: The Forgotten'' was released a few months later. After this success, Forgotten Empires and Microsoft Studios co-developed ''The African Kingdoms'' and ''Rise of the Rajas'', two further ''Age of Empires II HD'' expansion packs. They also contributed to '' Tale of the Dragon'', an expansion for ''

Age of Mythology ''Age of Mythology'' is a real-time strategy video game developed by Ensemble Studios and published by Microsoft Game Studios. It was released on October 31, 2002 in North America and on November 14, 2002 in Europe. A spin-off from the ''A ...

'', a spin-off game centered on mythology. ''Age of Empires: Definitive Edition'' was revealed by Forgotten Empires in 2017 during the Electronic Entertainment Expo PC Gaming Show. The game's release date was pushed back from October 19, 2017, to February 20, 2018. Through the

Windows Store The Microsoft Store (formerly known as the Windows Store) is a digital distribution platform operated by Microsoft. It was created as an app store for Windows 8 as the primary means of distributing Universal Windows Platform apps. With ...

, ''Age of Empires: Definitive Edition'' was made accessible. Forgotten Empires had co-developed multiple video games and expansions for the ''Age of Empires'' franchise with World's Edge, SkyBox Labs, and

Relic Entertainment Relic Entertainment Inc. (formerly known as THQ Canada Inc.) is a Canadian video game developer based in Vancouver, founded in 1997. The studio specializes in real-time strategy games and is known for series such as '' Homeworld'', '' Warhammer 4 ...

. In June 2022, Keywords Studios acquired Forgotten Empires for $32.5 million. In 2023, World's Edge announced that a remastered version of ''Age of Mythology'', '' Age of Mythology: Retold'', is in development, with Forgotten Empires also co-developing it.

Games and expansions

References

{{Keywords Studios Keywords Studios Video game development companies Video game companies established in 2013 American companies established in 2013 2013 establishments in Ohio Video game companies of the United States Software companies based in Ohio Companies based in Cincinnati