Halo Axed Game Had $90 Mil Budget

[Limited]

http://image.com.com/gamespot/images/2008/266/halommog481_screen.jpg

Yup, thats a Halo MMO


Ex-Ensemble developer Dusty Monk says Ensemble Studios spent three years developing a WOW killer--before Microsoft suddenly pulled the plug.

In July 2005, evidence surfaced that Age of Empires developer Ensemble Studios was working on a Halo-based massively multiplayer online role-playing game. Two weeks after Microsoft closed Ensemble in September 2008, reports surfaced that the project in question had been set in the Halo universe. Apparent art assets from the game surfaced, showing a sci-fi world that bore a resemblance to the wildly popular fantasy MMORPG World of Warcraft. (http://uk.gamespot.com/news/6257799.html?tag=result%3Btitle%3B0)

Crazy huh, a Halo MMO tasked to kill WoW :D..budget? $90 mil...wow

To be honest I don't know if it would have been a hit, but this is the first I've heard of it.

[Con]

To be honest I don't know if it would have been a hit, but this is the first I've heard of it.
Where have you been? :ohdear:

[thehoodedsmack]

I'm starting to think that video-games have a lot of wasteful spending. I've never seen the exact numbers of a studio's cost breakdown, but $90 million?

[neuro]

90 million isn't all that much even, especially for an MMO title.

you have to consider the development time, times the number of people working on it, times their wages.

trust me, even a medium sized studio with oh, about 70 employees will be having numbers in their books dealing with MILLIONS.

[Limited]

Where have you been? :ohdear:
Well I knew they were making an RPG, I didnt know it was an MMO and aimed to crush WoW.

@Neuro Yeah its not an insane amount, but its rather alot. WoW cost $60 mil to make.

[Inferno]

This would be terrible.

Halo is not a MMO. Halo is not a RTS.

Halo is a good game turned into a terrible franchise.

[ODX]

Some of the concepts for weapons were kind of cool, I remember Sigma made two of them: Striker and the something-else-I-forgot-the-name-of.

[LlamaMaster]

This would be terrible.

Halo is not a MMO. Halo is not a RTS.

Halo is a good game turned into a terrible franchise.

This. Halo has been whored enough already; it just needs to die now.

[teh lag]

Thank God this project fell apart... Especially considering some of the other stuff that's been shown from the project - there's a thread or two floating around in here about it - this looks like it would have been a tentacle-monster rape of the series' (visual, if nothing else) established conventions.

[Con]

The only good thing that came from this was the concept art.

shit son
http://img442.imageshack.us/img442/1122/ensmpv01.jpg

[annihilation]

I don't think I could be any happier that this failed.
What's next? Halo: Motor Sports?

I think they've milked Halo enough with the anime.

[thehoodedsmack]

What's next? Halo: Motor Sports?

I think a cartoony Halo-Kart might work. Not as a serious-business retail game, but maybe as an XBLArcade game. Sortof like Mario Kart: Double Dash, but with Warthogs, Ghosts, etc.

[Llama Juice]

^The only way I'd buy it, is if you could ride grunts.

[Inferno]

The only good thing that came from this was the concept art.

shit son
http://img442.imageshack.us/img442/1122/ensmpv01.jpg

This needs to be made into a multiplayer map.
Now.

[bravo22]

I think a cartoony Halo-Kart might work. Not as a serious-business retail game, but maybe as an XBLArcade game. Sortof like Mario Kart: Double Dash TWISTED METAL, but with Warthogs, Ghosts, etc.

ftfy :P

Halo and MMORPG just doesn't go together imo, but I disagree about the RTS part (@ Inferno) - I just didn't think Halo Wars did a good job at all. HaloGen (C&C Generals mod that MS ordered the termination of) could've been a good Halo RTS though.

[annihilation]

Even though the idea Halo being turned into a MMORPG sounds terrible. I think it would be fun.
They would have you do missions and fight grunts and shit.
And if you level up enough you become a spartan!

[n00b1n8R]

Well I knew they were making an RPG, I didnt know it was an MMO and aimed to crush WoW.
All MMO's have to be made to target WoW because that's where the massive majority of people who would pay to play live.
If you can't do that then you fail (looking at you AoC, WAR, etc).

[Cagerrin]

This needs to be made into a multiplayer map.
Now.
I'm actually modelling something based on the near tower atm.

[Kornman00]

You guys should pay closer attention to some of the 343ID listings...some of them make me wonder if this project was fully axed and not just transfered since ES was tore down.

Honestly, how many of you guys are truely MMO players? I don't think you guys would be around here if you were hardcore types. The MMO genre is huge. People die...from just playing it! Unlike their FPS cousins where people supposedly go out and kill others :downs:.

MS is just trying to target the genre to other types of players. People like Halo. However, not everyone will go for the FPS platform that it has mostly been put on. Halo Wars was a good fucking game that really deserves a sequel (game play, among other things, has more potential). If anything, them making Halo Wars shows that the story and the general game idea can be executed in different game genres.

If you're that butthurt about them bringing the story to other game genres then I'm sorry but you sound to be just scared of change (which is probably why you stick with FPS to begin with). I like Halo FPS's MP, but it's the story that brought me to playing the game more than once. MP came later. It wouldn't be franchise suicide to divide up the story into different mediums. It'd be franchise suicide to just keep pumping out an FPS with the Halo label on it like the CoD games. There is only so much you can tell and do with FPS constructs.

[sleepy1212]

As long as they didn't get to hokey with the character classes I think it would be pretty good.

[Limited]

Korn, I too fell in love with Halo for the story. I feel a change in an MMO, the story would be really lacking due to the vast scale of it. It wouldnt be true to the Halo universe.

Also yeah HW owns, we need a sequel.