Ensemble Studios' Canceled Project Was Halo MMO

simoniker writes "Following the recent announcement that Microsoft-owned Age Of Empires creator Ensemble Studios would close after the completion of Halo Wars, Gamasutra has discovered that a now-canceled Halo MMO was in development at the studio, unearthing prototype UI and level screenshots of the Ensemble-developed project. The prototype art, which was at one point made available on an Ensemble-linked online artist portfolio website, further confirms previous rumors that the studio was working on an MMO based on the Bungie-created sci-fi franchise." We discussed the future closing of Ensemble Studios a couple weeks ago. The set of pictures which seem to be screenshots and graphic models from the canceled Halo MMO has been posted on Flickr. In other Halo news, Bungie may be teasing the announcement of the next game on their website.

Microsoft figured that...

[isBandGeek()]

We didn't need another WoW clone. They're right.

Re:Bad News for Halo Wars?

[Cathoderoytube]

Maybe it's just me. But I never thought Halo had any potential to branch out into all these games they're trying to make it into. The entire series revolves around the life and times of Master Chief. Once you leave that it's pretty much as generic as carbon copy sci-fi shooters get (and it was pretty generic to begin with). I know they said the same thing about Super Mario (or at least for the sake of this argument they did) but in the case of those games all the characters weren't a bunch of space marines in green outfits.

Re:Bad News for Halo Wars?

[icedcool]

The original was fantastic.
The ringworld idea was executed very well, and everything tied together to make a really fun game, great multiplay and good coop.

When they tried to engineer fun is one of the many mistakes. Halo 2 had alot of problems too.

The biggest mistake I think was not stopping.

Re:And nothing of value was lost..

[AbRASiON]

I have mod points but rather than spend them modding you up, I just have to post how much I agree.

Halo is without any doubt in my mind, the most over-rated game of all time, it's an 'ok' shooter with a fairly limp story and a main character with absoloutely and utterly no soul or 'coolness' at all, yet is promoted (and somehow loved) as some awesome hero character, frankly I don't know if I played and finished the same game as other gamers.

Certainly not a crap game but it's in no way as good as it's touted to be, to this day it eludes me.
Now Kratos,... that is a main character I can understand the love for, that guy sweats nuts and bolts, eats rocks, plows his women a minimum two at a time and 'wrecks that shit' in general - good times.

Re:And nothing of value was lost..

[Enderandrew]

Don't forget that it seemed to borrow liberally from Half Life, but it didn't have nearly as good of a story as Half Life, nor the level design. Yet Halo seems to be unfairly credited as this innovative thing. In reality, Halo had many features cut when it was first moved from the Mac to the XBox and wasn't nearly the game that was promised. For many people however, it was their first experience at multi-player FPS as opposed to just playing against the computer. That multi-player experience is what so many enjoy, and why Halo is so highly regarded.

Re:MS Is Just Giving Up On The Xbox Fiasco

[Darkness404]

You are forgetting one thing that the Xbox does. It makes Microsoft relevant. If Microsoft can stop being associated with Windows and Office which most people have issues with, and start being associated with the Xbox, they have mindshare. It also helps keep at least one product from being "generic", for example, Live Messenger can easily be replaced with Pidgin, or AIM, Office can be replaced with another word processor, Windows can be replaced with your favorite operating system, Live Search by Google/Yahoo/etc, the Zune with an iPod or generic MP3 player. The Xbox and Halo represent one thing that can't be a drop-in replacement. Just look at the video game feuds of the '90s, Sonic wasn't a drop-in replacement for Mario, Digimon wasn't a drop-in replacement for Pokemon, granted, both of them were successful, but it wasn't a drop-in replacement the way that if someone decided to take a Linux desktop, theme it perfectly like your XP desktop, theme OOo to be like Office, etc, and the person I doubt would ever notice a change. On the other hand, give someone who is playing Mario a Sonic game and they would notice the change.

Re:And nothing of value was lost..

[Anonymous Coward]

what is it about having the name "ender" that seems to classify people as tightasses?

halo was intense and fun, single or multiplayer.
half life was fun for some, but hardly intense.

no grammar or spelling checks, no one will mod up an AC anyway ;)

Re:And nothing of value was lost..

[KDR_11k]

Blizzard doesn't do "innovative", they do "right". Starcraft wasn't something terribly new (though RTSes didn't have such diverse factions before it) but it was so well made it was simply better than the competition. If you look at (semi-recent) Blizzard games that's how they all go, not very innovative but very well done and always outperforming the competition. And what they do best is mass-market appeal. There are always the niche games with their fans that scoff at the lack of depth in the mainstream games but maybe the mainstream really doesn't WANT that much depth.

And just as Blizzard won markets with mass-market appeal so did Halo.

Re:And nothing of value was lost..

[Antique Geekmeister]

Halo was much, much more rooted in 'Marathon'. That was a Mac game, and one of the best Mac shooters ever. The plasma gun, in particular, and its charging up was a very Marathon touch. This is also because the same company, and many of the same employees, made both. I was upset when Microsoft bought Bungie and kept it off the Mac: it would have been a 'must-have' application for Mac owners, and a real incentive to get Macintoshes.

Re:And nothing of value was lost..

[oneiron]

Latency is the issue for an FPS MMO. No 20 ping? No audience...