Age of Empires, an epic and quite successful RTS (real-time strategy) game series, was developed by Ensemble Studios. The company was founded in 1995, and two years later they produced their first game work - Age of Empires. In 2001, it was acquired by Microsoft and became a game development company affiliated with Microsoft. Since then, it has rolled out many sequels and expansion packs of Age of Empires, which were released by Microsoft Game Studios (now called Xbox Game Studios).