So, I recently ran across Sandy Petersen on YouTube. For those unaware who he is, he worked on several big name game series like Civilization, DOOM, Quake, and Age of Empires. In one of his videos I watched, he mentioned that during his time at Ensemble Studios, while they were working on Halo Wars, one of their hopes was creating a MMO set in the Halo universe back during the Forerunner era before the firing of the Halo rings. Then he brings up how Don Mattrick put Ensemble Studios to death after Halo Wars, so sadly it never happened. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone in the Halo community talk about this before. I don’t know if they were discussions I just happened to miss, or if this was something that just hasn’t been well known. It makes me sad hearing about it, because well first of all I loved Ensemble Studios. The Age of series are some of the greatest video games I’ve ever played and I still enjoy them to this day. So I trust that that very talented team could’ve pulled this off. But second, it would’ve been really interesting to see such a deep expansion of the Halo lore. The game could’ve added so much more depth to the Forerunners beyond what we got in Greg Bear’s trilogy. I’ll leave a link to the video where Sandy mentions this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XU_Avx9cLZ4
I knew that Halo MMOs had been considered but I don’t know if they were totally separate side project ideas from this or if this is one and the same.
Ensemble’s loss was unfortunate but at the time MS just didn’t seem to prioritise PC gaming… so odd to think when you see their efforts now
I’d honestly be very much down for a Halo MMO, it just has to be set in the right era with the right style of gameplay and combat.
I kinda wish I never knew about this. I think that would’ve been SO cool and it makes me dislike Don even more now which I didn’t think was possible. Thanks for almost running xbox to the ground, Don.
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> I kinda wish I never knew about this. I think that would’ve been SO cool and it makes me dislike Don even more now which I didn’t think was possible. Thanks for almost running xbox to the ground, Don.
Right? Good God, Mattrick really screwed things up while he was in charge of Xbox. I would love to see the world where he was never hired by Microsoft and we got Phil Spencer then instead. Ensemble Studios was never closed down. How would their Halo MMO have turned out? Would they have already made an Age of Empires 4 years ago, and maybe an Age 5 or Age of Mythology 2.
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> I knew that Halo MMOs had been considered but I don’t know if they were totally separate side project ideas from this or if this is one and the same.
>
> Ensemble’s loss was unfortunate but at the time MS just didn’t seem to prioritise PC gaming… so odd to think when you see their efforts now
I find the tale of of MS and Ensemble studios only grows more ironic in age. I am so thankful that they were able to give us one last gift with HW before going defunct.
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> > 2533274874872263;2:
> > I knew that Halo MMOs had been considered but I don’t know if they were totally separate side project ideas from this or if this is one and the same.
> >
> > Ensemble’s loss was unfortunate but at the time MS just didn’t seem to prioritise PC gaming… so odd to think when you see their efforts now
>
> I find the tale of of MS and Ensemble studios only grows more ironic in age. I am so thankful that they were able to give us one last gift with HW before going defunct.
Yeah MS’ PC gaming strategy since about 2000 is just missed opportunities after missed opportunities. Hopefully Game Pass for PC is the tide turning there. Sad thing is they have no choice but to partner with Steam/Epic now whereas even 5 years ago a competing platform would have been a possibility