9 September 2008
Josh

Microsoft confirmed to close Ensemble Studios after Halo Wars release

It has been CONFIRMED that Microsoft will be closing Ensemble Studios after the developer finishes up and releases Halo Wars in the first half of 2009, their upcoming RTS set in the Halo universe. Microsoft has owned Ensemble since 2001.

“The team at Ensemble has made invaluable contributions to the games industry with their Age of Empires and Age of Mythology games and with the highly anticipated release of Halo Wars,” the publisher said in a statement. “This decision does not reflect at all on Ensemble’s talent or the quality of Halo Wars–in fact, many people who have had a chance to test drive Halo Wars agree that it is on track to being a fantastic game.”

But that won’t entirely be the end of the company, as the key players within Ensemble are set to form a brand new development house and have already entered into an agreement with Microsoft in order to continue supporting Halo Wars with post-launch content. In addition to working on other projects with Microsoft Game Studios.

Though Microsoft will close the studio, Ensemble brass plan to soldier on. As part of today’s statement, the studio said that “the leadership team” will form a new development house, and has already entered into an agreement with Microsoft to continue supporting Halo Wars post-launch, “as well as work on other projects with Microsoft Game Studios.”

As for why Microsoft decided to close Ensemble, they had this to say: “This was a fiscally rooted decision that keeps MGS on its growth path. While the decision to dissolve Ensemble was not an easy one, Microsoft is working to place as many Ensemble employees who do not move to the newly formed studio into open positions within Microsoft as possible.”

The Age of Empires brand has sold more than 20 million units since the first installment debuted on the PC in 1997. According to the NPD Group, Ages of Empires III for the PC has sold 1.15 million units in the US alone through July 2008, with The Warchiefs expansion tallying nearly 305,000 more. (The second expansion, Asian Dynasties, was developed by Rise of Nations creators Big Huge Games.)

Via GameSpot