Forgotten Empires is an independent game developer focused on Windows PC games and mobile apps. They are best known for developing expansions in the Age of Empires series.
The team came together as a group of fans making their own free unofficial expansion, Forgotten Empires (from which the team and The Forgotten later took its name). After Forgotten Empires surpassed everyone's expectations, they were approached by Microsoft Game Studios to help make new official content for the Age of Empires series in a professional manner.
The developer has a contract with Microsoft Game Studios that allows them to work on expansions, and SkyBox Labs updates/HD releases of Age of Empires games made by Ensemble Studios. They have also worked on Age of Empires: Definitive Edition, a remaster of the original Age of Empires game and its expansion, The Rise of Rome.
Forgotten Empires was acquired by and is a subsidiary of Keyword Studios since June 2022.
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- Main article: Official blog
In 2012, Bert Beeckman, an Age of Empires II enthusiast, was working on adding a new civilization to the game. After repeated failures, he found a guide from a fellow modder written in Mandarin. After several attempts, he came up with the 19th civilization, the Lombards, which later turned into the Italians. The civilization did not have unique assets, but it was selectable and playable sometimes, crashing on other occasions. That lead to the foundation of the Forgotten Empires mod. After managing the resources needed to create the civilizations (mainly the graphic files), he released the mod to the community late December 2012. Bert was hoping for 20,000 lifetime downloads for the mods, but hit this number after a few hours. Lifetime downloads eventually amounted to 1 million. Following the mod's success, Bert reached out to Microsoft, who were independently working on re-releasing Age of Empires II (the later HD Edition). This paved the way for the The Forgotten expansion, which was was released a year later, with more features and content compared to the mod version.
Matt Pritchard and Richard Geldreich, two of the original developers from Ensemble Studios, were brought in by Forgotten Empires and had significant roles in the Definitive Editions of the games.[1]
List of developed games[]
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- ↑ Former Ensemble Studios Lead Engineers join FE Team! on forgottenempires.net
| Developers of Age of Empires series | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Tony Goodman · Brian Sullivan · Bruce Campbell Shelley · Dave Pottinger · Sandy Petersen · Angelo Laudon · Brad J. Crow · Matt Pritchard · Stephen Rippy · Richard Geldreich | |
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| Bert Beeckman · Peter Piepenburg · Alexander Fleger · Matt Pritchard · Richard Geldreich · Atomhawk | |
| Campaign creators | |
| Ramsey Abdulrahim | |
| Other development studios | |
 Big Huge Games · Relic Entertainment ·  Robot Entertainment · SkyBox Labs · Tantalus Media · Wicked Workshop ·  World's Edge · Xbox Game Studios* · Keyword Studios · Tantalus Media ·  CaptureAge · Virtuos |