Tag Archives: ensemble

Voice controls wouldn’t work with Ensemble RTS Halo Wars, EndWar boss Michael de Plater has told VG247, as it’s too complex a game.

“I don’t even know that voice command would even be a very good solution for that style of game because the complexity of what you have to do is so much higher, and it’s not even such a natural thing,” he said, speaking at a recent EndWar event in London.

“It’s hard to see how it would work… It’s very hard to map that more intuitive idea onto a more traditional RTS, I think.”

Halo Wars and EndWar are too far apart from control systems to marry, said the exec.

“I think Halo Wars is a very, very different game to [EndWar], and the difference between Halo Wars and EndWar isn’t so much about the voice command rather than the game itself.

“We’re a tactical war game with no resource management and no base-building: they’re much closer to a traditional RTS, which is a combination of building and fighting and resource management.”

Halo Wars is out at the beginning of next year. EndWar hits on November 7 for 360 and PS3.

Speaking to GI at TGS, Bungie PR boss Brian Jarrard has claimed that Bungie only had a vague idea anyone was working on a Halo MMO, and that creating one would be “pretty challenging” thanks to the necessary creation of “a whole new layer of fiction” in the Halo universe.

“They are like our lunchtime discussions at the studio,” he said. “A Halo MMO wasn’t something that at the studio we had a lot of preview on. We’d heard rumblings and on paper, if someone says ‘Let’s take Halo, plus Warcraft, equals dollar signs…’

“So it was interesting when that whole thing came to light, there was more there than we ever really thought there was. I don’t know, we’ve had a lot of heated discussions – there’s a big, vast, rich universe, but then again it’s hard for me to imagine.

“Everybody wants to be Master Chief, they all want to be the Spartan. You’d have to create a whole new layer of fiction and new characters that don’t currently exist – not that it couldn’t be done,” he added.

“I don’t know if I would want to invest and become a Warthog mechanic in a garage, when all my friends were out there kicking ass on the front lines. I’m sure there’s probably enough there to work with where something could of come of it, but I think it would have been pretty challenging.”

More through the link.

Ubisoft Shanghai creative director Michael de Plater has said he believes Microsoft would have kept Ensemble Studios running if the firm has real confidence in PC games sales.

“I think it’s terrible, really a shame that Ensemble’s been shut,” he told VG247. “It’s really a bit of a shock… It just speaks of the problems with PC. I’m sure if people were confident of PC sales then Microsoft wouldn’t have done that.”

De Plater also told us that piracy was the main reason Tom Clancy’s EndWar wasn’t receiving a PC version in line with the game’s console SKUs.

Microsoft confirmed that Ensemble was to close in mid-September, saying the move was the “right thing” for its business.

IGN’s posted up three off-screen videos of Halo Wars being played at Tokyo Game Show today. You should watch them. They’re good quality and show the RTS’s controls as well as plenty of gameplay.

A few new shots here for you as well. Out in the first quarter of next year.

GTTV’s published a back-story trailer to RTS Halo Wars, showing some snowy goings on in the up-run to Ensemble’s swansong. Some phenomenal CGI, there, as you’d expect. Game’s out in the first quarter.

After the break.

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GameTrailers TV is to show the first proper in-game footage on Saturday morning, at 1am EST. Apparently there’s going to be an interview with the Ensemble chaps about the fact the sudio’s going to be shut down after the game ships, so there’s two reasons to watch it.

More on X3F.

On Kotaku. If you’ve missed this, they’re images from an Ensemble Halo MMO that was seemingly canned in 2007.

We’re guessing it’s too much to ask for a leaked alpha client?

We’ve just been dropped a link to this Flickr set, which appears to be a ton of concept imagery to something called Titan, apparently an “Ensemble Games prototype; 2005-2007.”

Yep, this would appear to be the canned Ensemble Halo MMO Gama broke earlier.

Fill your boots.

Update: A ton of concept images from the game have been posted on Flickr by “goneisgone”. See them here.

Gama’s reporting that Ensemble’s cancelled game was a Halo MMO. From the piece:

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.

There’s a screen and some art through there. Seriously. Thanks, Jim!

Speaking to Gamespot, Mythic boss Mark Jacobs has said he sees the recent Ensemble closure as a “terrible thing,” but that his studio has been careful to guard against “mistakes.”

“I look at Ensemble closing as being a terrible thing,” he said. “I love their games. But it should be no more of a message, I think, to the development community than an external developer shutting down because they ran out of money. And [there's] an old cliche about those who don’t remember the past are doomed to repeat it. But if you look at the history of developers, even successful ones, a lot of them that do get shut down have forgotten the lessons–that nothing lasts forever, and you are going to screw up no matter how smart you are.

“You’re going to screw up, and if you haven’t prepared for that day, you’re going to be in deep trouble. And we will always prepare for that day. Maybe I’m paranoid or just very cynical, but I believe we will make more mistakes going forward, and we prepare for that day. And if you’re going to do that and you have success and you still remember that, you’ll be OK. You can weather a storm or two.”

Lots more through there. Well worth a read. WAR, as if you didn’t know, is out today.

Halo Wars writer Graeme Devine has told MTV that Ensemble’s closure won’t effect Halo Wars’ quality. Just so you know.

“We will finish Halo Wars and it continues to be a kick ass game,” he said.

“The reaction at PAX was something else to see, it was the first time I’d seen a fan response to the game, so that absolutely rocked.”

Fears had obviously arisen for the title after Microsoft announced the studio would close after completion. Sweat no longer.

Game’s out early next year.

Leipzig’s the show that keeps on giving. Microsoft’s put out the pack-shot and a few new screens of Ensemble’s Halo Wars, as you can see on Joystiq, in celebration that Games Convention happened last week.

That’s it. Get strategising. In space. Game’s out early next year.

Bungie told Eurogamer at Develop today that Ensemble 360 RTS Halo Wars is coming on well, thank you very much.

“Everything we’ve seen has been very, very encouraging – we’re very excited about it. And of course, [Halo Wars is] also getting right the basics, the general roles – even fictionally,” said Bungie AI man Damian Isla.

“What role do grunts play in the Covenant fighting forces, what role do the Elites play, what role do Warthogs play, what role do Spartans play… All this kind of thing. I think they really nailed that. It’s encouraging.”

More through the link.

IGN – or “E3Avalanche.com” as it’s now known – has posted up hands-on impressions of Halo Wars, the first to do so as far as we know. Snip:

Take the level we played through. It’s a Forerunner-inspired battlefield with the UNSC camped in one corner of the map and the Covenant hiding in the other. With the marines under our control, you begin the battle with very limited resources – in this case a lone Warthog – and a ready-to-be-developed base. At the centre of the base is a HQ, which you must protect at all costs otherwise it’s game over. In the surrounding area are a number of empty plots on which you can construct new buildings. Now, as with most RTS games you’re limited to what you can build by the amount of resources you have access to and in this case they happen to be supplies. These are scattered across the battlefield and can be collected by sending out the Warthog to scoop them up, or alternatively you can generate your own by building a supply pad.

Through the link.

1UP is reporting that Halo Wars has slipped until the first half of 2009, which is a shame.

However, X3F has got some rather tart looking screenshots of the game and here’s a link to a brand new trailer.

We were looking forward to that, too. Oh well.

By Mike Bowden

After the break. Ensemble RTS Halo Wars was a complete no-show in the Microsoft E3 press conference last night, so hopefully we’ll get to see more from the showfloor later today. This trailer’s CG-only.

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On X3F. The Ensemble RTS will almost certainly make an appearance in the Microsoft conference tonight, so whet your appetite with this lot.

Speaking to 1UP, Ensemble lead designer Dave Pottinger has made no bones about the fact that the Halo RTS we’re going to see at E3 next week has had a major visual boost compared to the movie shown off last year.

“I think it would look a hell of a lot better,” he said when asked what the major differences between last year’s trailer and a video made today would be.

“The art’s just gone tremendously through the roof in terms of quality. The things we can do technically in the engine from a programming standpoint, and physics and whatnot, are just light years better than they were last year. The gameplay is definitely more honed – I think that would definitely come through in a gameplay video.”

There’s a 7,000-word interview through there. Read it is you can.

Ensemble’s said today that Halo Wars will have “several” demo stations at E3, which is a good thing. We think. This hopefully means it’s playable.

The studio’s been flaky on whether or not the game will be in proper action at the show in the past few weeks, so this is a the sign we’ve all been waiting for. All of us.

Thanks, X3F.

On GamersHell. All of sudden this looks much better, and it looked good before, so that’s double good. Do want. It’s being shown at E3, out next year. Take a look.