Did you know that there was a Halo MMO in the works? Yeah, the guys over at Ensemble Studios who were responsible for Halo Wars were actually working on an MMO codenamed Titan. Well, as you can probably tell the game never got out of development and information has just surfaced that tells us why.
According to Ensemble’s Dusty Monk:
“[Microsoft] were looking really hard at the Nintendo Wii and they were really excited by the numbers that the Wii was turning. So part of this changing of the guard at Microsoft came along with the changing of the attitude to this very expensive, very long and very protacted $90 million USD project we were working on. To cut a long story short, Titan was closed down.”
So what say you? Would you have played a Halo MMO?
Those looking to continue their Halo Wars escapades will be happy to hear that there is a Historic Battle DLC pack on its way
Featured in the Historic Battle pack are 4 new maps for players to wage war on. There will be two 1v1 maps included in the pack entitled Barrend and Blood River, one 2v2 map entitled Memorial Basin, and one 3v3 map called Glacial Ravine.
Additionally, the pack will come bundled with 4 new achievements totaling 100 Gamer Points. Below are said achievements:
• Tour Coming Through: Hot drop 50 squads to your Covenant Leader in a single game on Memorial Basin (30 points)
• Never Leave a Man Behind: Finish a game with 5000 net resources contributed to your teammates on Barrens (15 points)
• Drain Cleaner: Kill 20 enemy squads with a continuous Covenant Leader Power on Memorial Basin (30 points)
• Killjoy: Disrupt 5 active Leader Powers in a single game on Blood River (25 points)
For screenshots of the rest of the maps, hit up the read link below.
It seems the Strategic Options DLC pack for Halo Wars has officially hit Xbox Live for all to have. What’s included in the pack, you say? Well, thanks to Destructoid we have the entire contents listed below.
You’ll get 3 new game modes:
Keepaway: Teams need to capture a free-roaming Sentinel three times to win. Halo War’s version of Capture the Flag.
Tug of War: Victory is determined by the amount of units, buildings and resources that are left at the end of the round.
Reinforcement Mode: Units are provided in waves.
And 4 new achievements totalling 100 Gamerpoints:
One and Done: Score the winning point in a game of Keepaway against Legendary A.I.’s
Pull Hard, Pull Deep: Win and never trail in a Tug of War game
Freak on a Streak: Gain at least 15 population from a single wave in a Reinforcement game
Living Loving Bug: Obtain a Scarab during a Reinforcement game
And best of all it’s only 800 Microsoft Points. Wait, 800 Microsoft Points? That’s $10 dollars, right? And you don’t even get 1 new map? Is this some kind of joke?
Perhaps Microsoft is testing us to see who the real Halo fans are. Then again, probably not.
As you can see from the above video, Ensemble Studios managed to squeeze in a final farewell message thanking all of the fans for their support over the 12 years in the final credits for Halo Wars.
It’s too bad Ensemble Studios had to close right when their flagship game was released. Oh well, let’s just hope Robot Entertainment and Bonfire Studios will continue the once great developers legacy.
If you didn’t already know, the late Ensemble Studios’ Halo Wars has hit North American shelves everywhere.
Don’t know what Halo Wars is? Have you been living under a rock? Only kidding, Halo Wars is the first official real time strategy (think Command & Conquer) title based in Bungie’s hugely popular Halo universe. Better yet, if you got the Limited Edition version, you now have access to Halo 3‘s Mythic Map Pack.
Oh yeah, it’s an Xbox 360 exclusive, but did I really have to say that?
The recent formation of Robot Entertainment by former Ensemble employees was met with much applaud from gamers. It was even more awesome when they announced they would support Halo Wars while working on a new project.
Now comes word that a second studio has risen from the ashes of Ensemble in the form of Bonfire Studios. Based out of Dallas, Texas, the 35-person studio is working on a new game which they hope to announce in the coming months.
“Ensemble had an incredible group of highly talented people and the companies coming out of it are really made up of the best of the best. Ensemble was one of the few studios with two A-teams,” said Bonfire Studios CEO David Rippy, who most recently served as producer at Ensemble.
Following Microsoft’s closure of Age of Empires developer Ensemble Studios, Tony Goodman – co-founder of the RTS boutique – has formed a new studio called Robot Entertainment.
While a portion of Ensemble’s team remains at Microsoft to finish up and support Halo Wars, many have moved on and joined Goodman at the new studio.
No word was offered on what sort of projects the studio would work on, but more RTS goodness is expected from them.
I know, I know, I’m a day late, sue me. Anyways, for those of you who haven’t been paying attention, this is for you.
Recently released over Xbox Live is the demo for the late Ensemble Studio’s Halo Wars. Again for those who don’t know, Halo Wars is an all new RTS developed exclusively for the console, set in the Halo universe.
Did you know that Halo was originally designed as an RTS long before the idea of an FPS ever materialized? True story.
The game isn’t even out yet and developer Ensemble Studios is already talking about unleasing DLC after the games release.
This news comes to us from an interview done with the game’s lead producer, Jason Pace. Snippets from the interview include “We are committed to supporting the franchise,” but “there’re no definite plans yet.” However, whether he ment to hint at DLC or not he continued on to say “additional downloadable content is something we’re looking in to.”
Well Ensemble, or whatever your new studio’s name is, let’s just make sure you made a gamer-friendly console RTS. We’ll talk about DLC after that.
The recent formation of Robot Entertainment by former Ensemble employees was met with much applaud from gamers. It was even more awesome when they announced they would support Halo Wars while working on a new project.
Following Microsoft’s closure of Age of Empires developer Ensemble Studios, Tony Goodman – co-founder of the RTS boutique – has formed a new studio called Robot Entertainment.
