Kotaku Australia » halo mmo

Scrapped Halo MMO’s Title: ‘Halo Universe’?

Owen Good — Sun, 20 Sep 2009 22:30:00 +0000

Dylan Cole, an artist formerly with Ensemble Studios, has on his personal Web site some concept pieces for a canceled Halo project that may or may not have been called “Halo Universe.”

Ensemble of course was the muscle behind a Halo MMO that was greenlighted and then scrapped sometime last year. Cole’s pictures (two are on his site) are titled “Halo Universe City”, and in his description, Cole capitalises “Halo Universe” a second time. Could have been a working title of the game. Joystiq also points out it could have been “Universe City”. Which itself could have been a placeholder name. Who knows.

Of course it all doesn’t matter. The project is kaput. But the pictures are pretty, and tell us a little more about an evolution of this franchise not meant to be. For now.

Halo Project – City Designs [Dylan Cole, via Joystiq]

The History Of The Halo MMO, And Ensemble’s Other Cancelled Projects

Luke Plunkett — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 00:00:00 +0000

While Ensemble Studios – recently shuttered by owners Microsoft – were busy stowing their gear and shutting down operations, Gamasutra thought it’d be an idea to go ask a few more questions about the Halo MMO.

What they found was that the game has a long, long history. Indeed, it began before Halo, as a sci-fi project by the name of Titan, an MMO inspired by Ultima Online. Then, when Ensemble were brought into the Microsoft fold, the Halo licence “was incorporated in the game”, and the project’s name was changed to Orion.

Apparently, “everyone at Ensemble expected this MMO to be the new focus of the company”, and work even began on a new building to house the dev team. Down the road, however, “work on the new building stopped”, and it wasn’t much longer until Microsoft closed down the entire studio. A suggestion that the cancellation of Orion led to the studio’s demise, perhaps?

Moving on from Halo, a number of other unreleased projects came to light as concept art and design documents were packed away. There was a “fantasy-adventure RPG”, a “Diablo in space” game, a “pirate-themed take on Diablo”, a “Ratchet & Clank-style platformer” and a cartoony platformer called “Agent”.

Interestingly, one more older project was unveiled: “Phoenix”, an RTS pitting humans vs martians that “changed over time” to become Halo Wars.

The full report – including some concept art for both Orion and Agent – below.

Ensemble Studios: The Last Tour [Gamasutra]

Halo MMO Was Originally Given The Green Light

Luke Plunkett — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 03:00:00 +0000

Bad idea or not, there were plenty of people at both Microsoft and Ensemble Studios who thought making a Halo MMO was a good idea. So many, in fact, that prior to the game’s cancellation, it had actually been given the green light to enter full-blown production, and it was only “some reorganisation at Microsoft” that killed the project off.

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 it’s the “new bosses’ fault”? Sounds like the smartest move Don Mattrick’s made to date.

Age of Empires Dev Ensemble Speaks Out on Studio Closure, Microsoft, and the Cancelled Halo MMO [Shacknews]