Tag Archives: ensemble

Ensemble Studios founder Bruce Shelley has said Age of Empires III “just wasn’t an Age game”, and described the design process as “a huge mistake”.

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An ex-Ensemble staffer has told IncGamers that the studio’s canned Halo MMO was very much meant for the big time.

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Microsoft’s announced it’s added Fable II and Halo Wars to the Classics catalogue for 360.

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Those wondering what Ensemble co-founder Bruce Shelley’s been up to since Microsoft closed the studio can wonder no more – he’s working as a consultant with Ubisoft on The Settlers 7: Paths to a Kingdom.

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The fourth studio to be born from Ensemble’s ashes is NewToy, Joystiq reports.

The company’s first project is World War Robot, in collaboration with comic book chap Ashley Wood.

Details through there.

Bonfire Studios boss David Rippy, has told GI that Ensemble was “victim of its own success” in the RTS genre.

Bonfire was one of the studios to arise from Ensemble’s demise.

“With the cost of creating games so high, studios are almost forced to diversify across platforms,” he said.

“Aside from the financial risk of sticking to one platform or one genre, you also risk being pigeonholed in the industry.”

“Ensemble was kind of a victim of its own success as an RTS shop,” he said, adding: “As hard as we tried, we were never able to have one of our non-RTS prototypes greenlit, largely because we were ‘the RTS guys’.”

More through there.

Halo Wars lead producer Jason pace has to EG that a new company formed from the ashes of Ensemble will be taking care of aftercare for the console exclusive RTS.

“Ensemble is, as I’m sure you know, forming a new company, and they will be helping us support the title moving forward, so: bug patches, any kind of fixes – we’ll have all those folks available to work on it,” said Jason.

“As a studio right now, we’re talking about what we’d like to do to carry this game forward. We’re really excited about this game. We obviously have a lot of ideas of areas we’d like to go.

“We haven’t committed to anything yet, but I believe you’ll probably be hearing something soon.”

More through the link.

By Mike Bowden

Ensemble head Bruce Shelley’s made his final blog update before the studio closes, confirming that “at least” two new studios are to be born from the ashes.

“There are at least two new studios being formed by ES employees and I expect both to do very well,” he said.

“There were a lot of outstanding game developers here and it will be interesting to see how and what they do, both individually and as new groups, in the years ahead.”

Microsoft decided to close the studio following the completion of Halo Wars.

Shelley added a sentimental note to the closure: the development legend was employee number four at Ensemble in 1995.

“We are working our way through the final week with mixed emotions,” he said.

“We have a lot to be proud of and new opportunities are beckoning, but it is also sad to see this particular great adventure coming to an end.”

Halo Wars releases on February 27.

Both Planet Xbox 360 and MLGPRO are offering early access to the Halo Wars demo, assuming you can’t wait until February 5 for the general release.

Winning a code from either site means you’ll be able to get involved from January 29. That’s this Thursday.

The game’s out later in February. Thanks, Joystiq.

Halo Wars is now gold, Microsoft’s announced, describing the RTS as “genre-defining”.

The Live demo will release on February 5 prior to launch on February 27.

Halo Wars is Ensemble’s last game: the studio will now close.

A series of vidocs is to be released in the run up to the game’s release, the first of which can now be downloaded from Live. Check Nelson for details.

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Microsoft confirmed yesterday that the Halo Wars review embargo will lift on February 20 at 2.00pm GMT.

The Ensemble RTS is to be shown off at the Cabinet War Rooms in London next week, an event to include multiplay and developer interviews.

Halo Wars will be the last Ensemble game before Microsoft closes the studio.

Microsoft has confirmed to videogaming247 that despite Microsoft’s announcement at CES 09 that Halo Wars has moved to February 28, the European date of the 27th remains unchanged.

“On Halo Wars, the actual European release date is the 27th Feb,” said a spokesperson earlier today.

The MS UK representative also confirmed to VG247 that the demo date of Feb 5 would also apply to Europe.

“The demo is due on the 5th Feb, and yes, it will be available to European LIVE subscribers.”

So there you have it.

By Mike Bowden

On CVG. Expect a promotional blitz on the Ensemble RTS in the coming weeks: it’s due for release on February 27.

Microsoft’s confirmed RTS Halo Wars for release on February 27 in Europe and March 3 in the US.

Apparently, if you pre-order, you can get some flame decals for your Warthog, which is as good a reason as any to do so, we reckon.

This will be Esemble’s last title as Microsoft intends to close the company after Halo Wars’ release.

Full release details after break.

By Mike Bowden

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Gamerscoreblog’s asking for reader questions on Ensemble’s Halo Wars, so if there’s an issue burning a hole in your mind about the 360 RTS, now’s your time to pour water on it. Or something.

There’s no news, OK? Thanks, X3F.

Just making sure you don’t miss the rest of the stuff from last week’s Halo Wars preview events in the US and Europe, following yesterday’s cavalcade.

• Hands on (IGN)
• Graeme Devine video interview (Gamespot, after the break)
• Graeme Devine interview (Kikizo)
• Halo Wars DLC already done (CVG)

Game’s out next February.

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An embargo lifted on Halo Wars preview coverage this afternoon, unleashing a ton of new previews and interviews on the Ensemble 360 RTS.

And here they are.

• New shots and art (IGN)
• “Even Ensemble Doesn’t Understand Their Closure” (Blue, via Shack)
• Ensemble: Microsoft made a mistake (D-Pad)
• Ensemble will have a successor (Videogamer)
• Hands on (Eurogamer)
• Interview (CVG)
• Hands-on (Gamespot)
• Hands on (1UP)
• Hands on (Joystiq)

Speaking to Shacknews, Ensemble tech boss Dave Pottinger has outlined the background for the firm’s canned MMO, and revealed that the game was green-lit and had staffed up to 40 employees before is was axed in an exec changeover.

From the interview:

What were the circumstances behind the Halo MMO?

Pottinger: Ensemble has been wanting to make an MMO for a long time. That was in production for a long time. The Halo IP was a great IP to launch an MMO with. Microsoft… hasn’t had the best track record with those.

And we worked on it for a long time–we had staffed up an almost-40 person team. And then there was some reorganization at Microsoft, and the new bosses thought it wasn’t the best idea anymore. It had actually been green-lit, and then it got cancelled after that.

So you guys were feeling good about it?

Pottinger: Yeah, we were happy with it. It was a long road to go, and we had proved the gameplay we wanted to prove.

It actually turned out–we ended up reusing a lot of the people. We had hired people who were excited about making a Halo game, and we used them on Phoenix–Phoenix is the Halo Wars codename. And a lot of that stuff that we picked up was able to be reused. So we didn’t lose everything. It wasn’t all wasted.

From the screenshots that were leaked, it seemed very World of Warcraft-esque. Was that your model?

Pottinger: Yeah. It’s a popular one.

Was the concept such that there were Covenant and UNSC factions, in the same way that WoW has Horde and Alliance?

Pottinger: It was more broken up than that. The Covenant weren’t quite the Covenant yet.

That idea of that sort of stylized approach to Halo was something that we were very interested in, in terms of the art. Some of the art that leaked out wasn’t art that was actually in the game, so people were a little more torqued than they needed to be.

But it felt very Halo–we had a combat demo that felt like a very action-oriented MMO, but still had that MMO depth. So it was very analogous to the RTS that we worked on.

So you didn’t have plans to go for a more FPS-style game.

Pottinger: It was definitely more of a classic MMO, but it still had that very action feel. Definitely more actiony than WoW.

Microsoft’s confirmed that Halo Wars is to release in February.

The Collector’s Edition will include the Halo 3 Mythic map pack, featuring three maps, a badge to sew on you knapsack and some other stuff you probably shouldn’t care about.

More on Joystiq.

Well, lookie here. Ensemble 360 RTS Halo Wars is seen playable in proper direct-feed footage after the break, showing base-building, unit selection and some of your heavier weapons in action against the Covenant, such as carpet bombing and a freeze bomb thing.

It does look cool, no question. There’s a bit of video right at the end showing the Flood, as well.

Halo Wars is out early next year. Take a look.

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