Microsoft to Shut Down Halo Wars Studio

Ensemble Studios, famous for the Age of Empires real-time strategy series, is losing staff members as it nears the end of its Halo Wars development.

Microsoft's Shane Kim addressed Ensemble employees yesterday to explain that after Halo Wars is released early next year, the studio, which was acquired by Microsoft in 2001, will be closed. The cut, confirmed Microsoft, was solely a financial decision "that keeps MGS on its growth path."

"The team at Ensemble has made invaluable contributions to the games industry with their Age of Empires and Age of Mythology games and with the highly anticipated release of Halo Wars," said Microsoft in a statement. "This decision does not reflect at all on Ensemble's talent or the quality of Halo Wars. In fact, many people who have had a chance to test drive Halo Wars agree that it is on track to being a fantastic game."

When the studio is shut down, the "leadership team" will form another development team dedicated to Halo Wars maintenance and future Microsoft Game Studios projects while other developers will be relocated to other Microsoft teams to keep as many workers employed as possible.

The choice to close such a famous studio for fiscal earnings questions the chances that RTS fans will see another Age of Empires game by a different team or stick to its third-party partnerships for fresh titles.

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Don't jump to conclusions, here. When Age of Mythology's development ended, they had large layoffs because a lot of the staff had joined for that singular project and kept on core staff for the expansion. Since Halo Wars is a similar sort of, one-off instalment then no wonder that we could expect people leaving when their job is done. Microsoft Games is hardly a wide enterprise, but it is is financially massive and it doesn't surprise me that the talented minds over at Ensemble will find work elsewhere in the corp.

What about future patch support and such?

Digikid:
What about future patch support and such?

Logan:
When the studio is shut down, the "leadership team" will form another development team dedicated to Halo Wars maintenance

Khell_Sennet:

Melaisis:

Digikid:
What about future patch support and such?

Logan:
When the studio is shut down, the "leadership team" will form another development team dedicated to Halo Wars maintenance

Yeah, or so they say.
Microsoft is king of "Release it flawed, fix it later", beating EA off that throne when they released Vista. I wouldn't be at all surprised if MS gives a quarter-year worth of support then dumps the thing saying "It's Ensemble's problem".

I'd guess that since it's a Halo game, they'll take special care to not hurt the franchise though.

Logan Frederick:

I'd guess that since it's a Halo game, they'll take special care to not hurt the franchise though.

By never releasing another one?

Logan Frederick:

Khell_Sennet:

Melaisis:

Digikid:
What about future patch support and such?

Logan:
When the studio is shut down, the "leadership team" will form another development team dedicated to Halo Wars maintenance

Yeah, or so they say.
Microsoft is king of "Release it flawed, fix it later", beating EA off that throne when they released Vista. I wouldn't be at all surprised if MS gives a quarter-year worth of support then dumps the thing saying "It's Ensemble's problem".

I'd guess that since it's a Halo game, they'll take special care to not hurt the franchise though.

Now thats some discrimination. Think about it?
Bad BAD Micrsoft ^^

Well this is already off track from Ensemble closing to "halo sucks".

I was confirmed by MS today...Ensemble is working on their last project. THe leads are off to form a new developer, and MS is trying to entice as many employees as possible to stay with them to support the game.

Khell_Sennet:

The_root_of_all_evil:

Logan Frederick:

I'd guess that since it's a Halo game, they'll take special care to not hurt the franchise though.

By never releasing another one?

Oh Snap!

By pushing the limits on what can be considered "milking" the franchise :)

Ensemble Studios made the greatest games I ever played. They will be missed, and I will be watching any new development team that continues their legacy.

That's a bit shocking. I've always liked the Age of Empires type games, and Ensemble made the best of them.

I hope this doesn't mean RTSs in general will start to decline.

i think age of empires 2 and age of mythology were very good, age 3 and rise of nations however were unimaginative, half-finished games that actually required you to buy expansions to get the 'full' game u were supposed to get in the first place.

As for the RTS genre declining, i doubt it will happen while blizzard is still around

This is worse then when Nintendo dropped Rare.

Meh. The 'core' leadership is sticking on for Halo Wars maintenance and then other projects too, and they said they'll try to distribute as many other devs throughout the other teams they've got. Sure, the game won't have an Ensemble tag anymore, but I'm not terribly worried about losing that RTS goodness.

Khell_Sennet:
As far as the HALO franchise is concerned, the best thing they can do is branch out into different products, get away from FPS games for a while and focus on other genres and mediums. The novels were a terrific idea, I've read 4 of the 5 so far and they're to a much MUCH higher standard than typical game-based novels. Halo Wars was also a great idea, but they fucked it up well before they decided to close the dev company.

A growing franchise needs exposure, not exclusivity. Halo's exclusive nature was great for Microsoft and XBox, bad for Bungie and Ensemble. Making an RTS, the quintessential PC game, into a console game, not a bad idea. Working the interface around the console's controller so that it's easy to play, not a bad idea. Telling PC gamers to go fuck themselves, buy an XBox or you can't play, BAD IDEA.

Whatever happened to that Halo movie they were planning? ;/