Last week, former Ensemble Studios designer, Sandy Petersen, shared a chilling revelation on X on what happened to a Halo MMO that was supposed to be developed by the studio. The revelation centered around Don Mattrick’s greed.
It was claimed that Mattrick killed the game to protect his corporate bonus. The project, dubbed Titan, was a prequel MMO set in the Halo Universe. On paper, it sounded like an exciting game to play.
“In 2008, Ensemble Studios started planning a gigantic MMO set in the Halo universe. We code-named it Titan,” read the revelation shared by Petersen. “It was to take place tens of thousands of years ago, before the Halos were set off & destroyed all sentient life in the Galaxy.”
“I was in charge of the universe-building – planet histories, alien species, etc. You could play either as Forerunners or their enemies, the Covenant. The Flood, of course, was in the game, but not playable. We had quest lines all worked out, homeworlds for all the species, etc. etc.
The lowest estimate we & Microsoft had for the game’s totally income was $1.1 billion. It was all brought to naught when Don Mattrick realized that his stock bonus was based on the income MS had from games in 3 years.
You see, we estimated 3.5 years to finish Titan if we did it right. And that’s beyond Mattrick’s drop dead date. So by firing ALL of Ensemble, he didn’t have to pay for our expensive studio for 3 years and he didn’t care about Titan.
All he lost was a game studio who never sold less than 3 million copies of everything we made. I don’t believe he did justice to MicroSoft stockholders but hey – Don started as an EA hatchet man so what would you expect?”
The shuttering of Ensemble Studios in 2008
Ensemble Studios was based in Dallas, Texas. It was formed in 1995 by the trio of Tony Goodman, Rick Goodman, and John Boog-Scott. Microsoft acquired the studio in 2001. While it lasted, Ensemble Studios was famous for creating the Age of Empires series.
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Sadly, in September of 2008, Microsoft confirmed that the studio would be shut down, a decision said to be fiscally driven. Since the closure of Ensemble Studios, many of the former developers have gone on to form new game studios as follows:
- Tony Goodman, along with a number of veteran developers, announced in February 2009 that they had founded the studio Robot Entertainment.
- A second team of about 35 developers announced to have founded Bonfire Studios (now Zynga Dallas) in the same month, headed by David Rippy.
- Dusty Monk established Windstorm Studios.
- The brothers Paul Bettner and David Bettner founded Newtoy, Inc. (now Zynga With Friends).
- The brothers Tommy Bean and Michael Bean established Pixelocity Software (after briefly working at Robot Entertainment).
- Jeff Ruediger co-founded the mobile game development studio Fuzzycube Software in March 2009.
- Graeme Devine established GRL Games in 2010.
- Sandy Petersen founded Petersen Games in 2013 after briefly working at Barking Lizards Technologies as CEO.
Don Mattrick served as the President of Microsoft’s Interactive Entertainment arm, and was in charge of Xbox strategy until he left the firm in 2013 to become the CEO of Zynga.
Do you think a Halo MMO would have been a commercial success? Share your thoughts in the comment box below.
