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A Year in Forge: Events and updates of 2025

Dear Kings and Queens,

Another year has passed, bringing us many changes, new developments, and exciting experiences. It's time to summarize it all in a brief summary of the year. Note: All features mentioned here in the months are based on the live release. Since Beta is ahead in development, the features mostly came out 1-2 months earlier than noted here.

January

The year began with the update to version 1.300 – such a nice round number. Apart from the new version, we also kicked off the year with the Wildlife Event. It features the well-known pop-2 mechanics, but with an improvement in the form of a multiplier that allows you to use two or even three tickets at once. This multiplies the rewards gained, but also increases the costs in boosts or Wildlife Coins.

We also introduced a new Quantum Incursion Championship, during which we decided to reduce the number of available paths to a single choice, as you may have noticed already. However, in the last Championship, a bug occurred that caused the Boss node to be replaced with a regular node. This affected the rewards, for which we have provided you with partial compensation.

February

Another month brought a long-awaited improvement to the Inventory. Thanks to your votes in the Community Vote, we added the option to mark items as favorites, allowing them to appear at the top of your item list. We also introduced several filters to make it easier to navigate through all your buildings or items, as well as an option to sort items from newest to oldest. The search function was improved as well, enabling you to find items by set or chain name. We additionally revealed an upcoming change to historical allies, but more on that next month. It is also worth noting that this month marked the launch of the first Guild Battlegrounds Championship of the year. And in between GBG battles and Events, your Rival Baron Alaric Ironsoul visited, bringing new mini-challenges between Events complete with various rewards.

It would also be remiss of us not to mention that the St. Patrick’s Day Event began that month. You helped Paddy McCharms host the feast in return for lucky rewards, including the Celtic Goldsmith.

March

The month started with a major update to Guild Expedition: Trials. This new format of the feature gives you greater flexibility by allowing you to choose more challenging enemies in exchange for higher rewards, or less challenging enemies to help your Guild secure first place in the Championship. As mentioned earlier, we also updated Historical Allies, allowing you to level them up to significantly improve their boosts. With this update, we give you the opportunity to earn scrolls for leveling up your allies by completing quests, and in addition, you are able to gather the first Epic Ally.

Last but not least, we launched our 13th Anniversary Event, marking another year in Forge. We expanded our merge mechanic with a World Challenge feature that rewards not only your personal progress but also the progress of the entire game world.

April

The month began with the release of the Inventory Log, which allows you to review the most recent changes in your inventory. Another welcome change requested by you, our community. We also launched a new vote in which you decided that our next Settlement should be themed around the Golden Age of Pirates. Additionally, you had the opportunity to learn more about the future of the game in Matt’s Community Letter – specifically about upcoming changes such as Item Stores, the Guild Battlegrounds Upgrade, and Great Building Upgrades. In that letter, we also explained how we generally categorize feedback and how your feedback influences our overall vision for the game.

We also invited you to join the discussion about a new feature currently in development – Guild Conquest – by presenting you with a first look at the feature.

May

The Vikings arrived in your cities with our new Event, featuring the well-known Wheel of Fate mechanics and a variety of Viking-themed rewards. Additionally, you had the opportunity to add two Vikings as your Allies. With this Event, we also introduced a new approach to how the Rival works, as Baron Alaric now offers 18 mini-challenges, each consisting of six quests and one milestone reward.

We also shared news regarding Guild Conquest – we decided to postpone the development of the feature to focus on more important features. Following the active discussion, we decided to shelf the feature, giving way to more pressing challenges, and allowing time for the idea to develop.

The month of May was truly reach with news, as we also introduced our first Item Store, the Legacy Exchange, allowing you to choose and obtain special buildings that may otherwise no longer be available.

June

The month began with a between-Events Mini-Challenge focused on Guild Expedition and its rewards. As summer approached, we also launched the Summer Event, featuring pirate-themed gameplay and rewards. For the first time, we reintroduced the main event building from the previous year with a time-limited upgrade, the Pirate King’s Conquest Villa.

July

Both of our Guild features started a new Championship – first, Quantum Incursion at the beginning of the month, and second, Guild Battlegrounds at the end of the month. This month also brought a long-awaited improvement: the Replace Units button that allows you to greatly speed up most of your battles exchanging all your units with a single click.

The Care for Tomorrow Event also began, featuring merge mechanics. This year’s Event was special for another reason – it was the first time we implemented an Item Store within the Event. The Eco Store allows you to choose the rewards you want in addition to the regular rewards you receive.

August

This month brought a major change to Guild Battlegrounds: Trials. Similar to Guild Expedition, you can now choose a difficulty level – lower Trials feature weaker enemies, allowing you to fight more, while higher Trials offer stronger opponents but also greater rewards. The update also introduced scaling adjustments that cut the number of fights required to conquer provinces in half, while doubling the rate at which enemy troops gain boosts. In addition, we implemented two Item Stores – a Seasonal Store, which refreshes each Season, and a Championship Store, which refreshes each Championship. These stores give you greater flexibility in choosing your rewards and allow you to complete past Championship buildings if you missed any of them.

At the end of the month, we also launched the third between-events Mini-Challenge, once again focused on Guild Expedition and its rewards.

September

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The Fall Event began, expanding our Event-related Item Stores. We decided to replace Daily Specials with Item Store currency, allowing you to earn special Event currency each day and purchase any item of your choice from the Baker’s Stall at any time. We also implemented a rotation of discounts in the Item Store, so attentive players can shop while spending less currency than usual. Additionally, we introduced the Multi-Spoon that allows you to speed up your match mini-game, a mechanic first successfully introduced in the Wildlife Event. Baron Alaric Ironsoul also modified his behavior, offering a single questline with quests that unlock daily.

Based on player feedback, we made changes to the Guild Battlegrounds Stores, removing purchase caps on Diamonds, Forge Points, and Goods in the Seasonal Store, as well as adding new Forge Points and Goods slots in the Championship Store.

October

The month began with a new Era of Quantum Incursion – we reached the Middle Ages, allowing you to build buildings from up to three different Ages, expanding your strategic options and providing greater challenges. Along with this major update, we also enhanced the reward distribution system by introducing the Quantum Incursion Store. No new Era would be complete without new rewards, and this time we prepared the Neo Bazaar – the new main Quantum Incursion reward, replacing the long-serving Neo Colossus.

We also launched the next event, the Fellowship Event. Our Item Stores continued to play a central role in events, and this one was no exception. We implemented a small quality-of-life improvement to the Event tasks: the reward is now displayed before the task is completed, so you can decide whether it is worth rushing the task immediately or waiting a little longer.

The month concluded with another Guild Expedition update. This update expanded the Trials selection with 25 additional Trials, giving you the opportunity to tackle greater challenges. And with greater challenges, came upgraded rewards. The final Trial features a new temple to discover – the Ancient Temple – a time-limited building to exist alongside the Forgotten Temple, offering impressive boosts for your army, with an addition of a Goods production boost.

November

The month began with the Halloween Event. Spooky season brought several changes, including the removal of Energy Tokens to simplify the mechanics of the Wheel of Misfortune, a break from Rival Challenges so you could enjoy the event at your own pace, Multi-Throw Knives scaling with Grand Prize Progress to reward more advances when throwing multiple knives at once, and, of course, the Item Store – Clown’s Counter – allowing you to purchase the rewards of your choice.

The end of the month was packed with new releases. First, the new Pirates Settlement arrived in your cities, where you could build your own bustling cove and claim your share of the treasure for your city. New Settlements also come with a new Dice mini-game. Next, the last between-Events Mini-Challenge of the year took place, this time focused on Quantum Incursion tasks and rewards.

December

We celebrated the start of the cold season with our traditional Winter Event. It began on the first day of the month and introduced several changes: the board was polished and expanded – now featuring 16 houses (two more than last year), clearer Grand Prize progress tracking, and a convenient reset timer so you always know when a new board will appear. Houses now begin lit and ready to visit, and once collected, they dim to show your progress – a simple, more intuitive way to play. New Item Stores were also introduced, filled with valuable rewards and festive surprises.

Following the results of your vote on Discord, we lifted the room limitation for Historical Allies, allowing you to place any Ally in any building with an Ally Room, regardless of the Ally’s rarity. We also launched the second Quantum Incursion Championship in the Middle Ages, which brings not only new rewards but also several changes to Settlement buildings and Quantum Actions Capacity – doubling the boosts provided by certain main City buildings and increasing the general Quantum Actions Capacity from 100,000 to 200,000.

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To round the year off, we released the version 1.324, containing final changes and preparations for things to come in the new year. In the year 2025, we had exactly 25 versions – another pleasant round number.

And this concludes our recap! Our team has worked on many things behind the scenes. Some of them you might not notice immediately, and others may reveal themselves soon enough. Check out our Beta server to be the first to experience new changes and get an early sneak peek at the newest content coming in 2026, stating with the Wildlife Event. Along with the brand-new Elephant Rehabilitation Centre, we're bringing fresh time-limited upgrades for fan favorites like Majestic Animal Crossing and Radiant Flamingo Paradise. And that's among many other rewards!