Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition

GDC Plays Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition with lead developer Bert Beeckman

Forgotten Empires evolved from a grassroots community modding collective into a professional studio through a strategic partnership with Microsoft, culminating in the comprehensive reconstruction of Age of Empires II.

• Forgotten Empires scaled the Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition data size down from a peak of 120GB during pre-beta testing to approximately 30GB for the final release to ensure accessibility across a wider range of hardware.
• The development team transitioned from the HD Edition's approach of simply scaling up original sprites to creating entirely new, high-quality assets for every element in the game.
• The project reached over 1 million lifetime downloads, a milestone that exceeded the developers' initial expectations and solidified the partnership between Forgotten Empires and Microsoft.