Matt Forbeck is an award-winning and New York Times-bestselling author and game designer with over thirty-five novels and countless games published to date. His projects have won a Peabody Award, a Scribe Award, and numerous ENnies and Origins Awards. He is also the president of the Diana Jones Award Foundation, which celebrates excellence in gaming.
His latest work includes the Marvel Multiverse Role-Playing Game, Hard West 2, Warhammer 40,000: Tacticus, Minecraft Legends: Return of the Piglins, and the Shotguns & Sorcery 5E Sourcebook based on his novels. He is the father of five, including a set of quadruplets.
Matt has made a living full-time on games and fiction since 1989, when he graduated from the Residential College at the University of Michigan with a degree in Creative Writing. With the exception of a four-year stint as the president of Pinnacle Entertainment Group and a year and a half as the director of the adventure games division of Human Head Studios, he has spent his career as an independent freelancer.
He has worked with many top companies, including 343 Industries, Activision Blizzard, Adams Media, AEG, Angry Robot, ArenaNet, Artbox Entertainment, Asmodee, Atari, Atlas Games, Avalanche Studios, Ben Bella Books, Bioware, Bonnier Books, BOOM! Studios, Calliope Games, Catalyst Game Labs, CMON, Conan Properties, Dark Horse Comics, Darker Hue Studios, Decipher, DK Publishing, Embracer Group, Escapist Magazine, Evil Hat Productions, Experiment 101, Fantasy Flight Games, Free League Publishing, Games Workshop, Gazillion Entertainment, Geek Dad, Gen Con, Good Shepherd Entertainment, Goodbye Kansas, Green Ronin, Grenadier Models, Guildhall Games, Hasbro, Hidden Path Entertainment, High Voltage Software, Human Head Studios, Ice Code Games, IDW, Image Comics, Iron Crown Enterprises, Kobold Press, Lone Shark Games, Lucasfilm, Macmillan Publishers, Marvel, Mattel, Microsoft, the Milwaukee Public Museum, Mojang, Nexon, Onyx Path Publishing, Paradox Entertainment, Pelgrane Press, Penguin Random House, Playmates Toys, Pinnacle Entertainment Group, Privateer Press, Raw Fury, Reaper Miniatures, Snowprint Studios, Steve Jackson Games, THQ Nordic, Titan Books, Topix Media, TSR, Ubisoft, Wizards of the Coast, WizKids, White Wolf, and WildStorm Productions. Brands he’s written for include Aliens, Assassin’s Creed, Biomutant, Blood Bowl, Conan, DC Comics, Dungeons & Dragons, G.I. Joe, Ghost Recon, Guild Wars, Halo, Hard West, Leverage, Life Is Strange, Magic: The Gathering, Marvel Comics, Minecraft, Star Trek, Star Wars, Starcraft, Rage, Tales from the Loop, The Lord of the Rings, Warhammer: 40,000, and World of Warcraft.
Matt has designed collectible card games, roleplaying games, miniatures games, board games, and logic systems for toys and has directed voiceover work and written short fiction, comic books, novels, screenplays, and video game scripts and stories. His work has been translated into 15 languages: Chinese, Czech, Finnish, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, and Swedish.
He is a member of the International Game Developers Association and is on the board for the Game Writing Special Interest Group. He also belongs to the International Association of Media Tie-In Writers and the International Thriller Writers.
Projects Matt has worked on have been nominated for 28 Origins Awards and won 15. This includes the Best Roleplaying Game for Deadlands and The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying Game, Best Miniatures Rules for Warzone and The Great Rail Wars, Best Roleplaying Adventure for Independence Day, Best Roleplaying Supplement and Best Graphic Design for Redhurst Academy of Magic, Best Fantasy Board Game for Genestealer, and Best Short Story for “Prometheus Unwound” from The Book of All Flesh. He has also won 10 ENnies and been nominated for three Scribe Awards and won the Special Gaming Scribe—Adapted for his novelization of the Mutant Chronicles film. In addition, he worked on the first Alternate Reality Game, codenamed The Beast, which won a Peabody Award.
Matt lives in Beloit, Wisconsin, with his wife Ann and a rotating cast of their college-age children — which includes a set of quadruplets, but that’s a whole ’nother story.
