Halo Wars 2 still possible on Xbox 360?

11 March 2009

Posted by:Ferry

Halo Wars 2 Xbox 360 fake boxart The 100% Completion achievement description in Halo Wars reads “Ready for the Sequel”, hinting that developers from the now defunct Ensemble Studios might have known they’ll work with Microsoft again in the future. Hopefully we’ll see Halo Wars 2 bring more RTS goodness to the Xbox 360 console.

With Microsoft closing their Ensemble Studios — for “a fiscally-rooted decision” — after Halo Wars was finished, didn’t inspire fans of the Age of Empires series or Halo universe with much hope of a sequel. Aside from the above hint that is. But there’s more hope…

In an email announcing the closing of Ensemble, Microsoft Game Studios boss Phil Spencer did mention that: “Following the closure, the Ensemble leadership team will form a new entity and have agreed to partner with Microsoft to develop future products and provide support for Halo Wars post launch. While the new company will be hiring a portion of the Ensemble employees, its size and resources prevent it from offering positions to the entire Ensemble team. We hope to integrate much of this creative talent into MGS or the broader IEB team, where we have relevant openings.” Read the full letter at IG.

As for the rest, former employees have banded together and already formed two new development houses…

One of them, former Ensemble Studios producer David Rippy founded Bonfire Studios. Mr. Rippy isn’t very optimistic about RTS games and even goes as far as to say that “Ensemble was kind of a victim of its own success as an RTS shop. As hard as we tried, we were never able to have one of our non-RTS prototypes greenlit, largely because we were ‘the RTS guys’. [...] Our first game is something completely different than what we’ve done in the past. I think our games will always have a strong strategy element to them, though, since that is one of the core strengths of the team,” he told GI.

The second studio, former Ensemble Studios head Tony Goodman who founded Robot Entertainment. It consists out of 45 veterans from the Age of Empires developers, who found a new home there. They currently provide online support and community management for Halo Wars, and are working together with Microsoft Game Studios on Halo Wars downloadable content. As well as providing support for current and make future titles in the Age of Empires franchise. With Robot teaming up with the internal MGS team, all made up of former Ensemble employees, they would seem the likely choice for Microsoft to select to make a sequel to the first Halo RTS. Which, by the way, is currently being met with great initial sales number of over 450,000 units in America and Europe. But right now they’ve only announced they are working on their own original IP.

Picture courtesy of VGboxart, I picked it because I like the idea of the Master Chief appearing in the second Halo Wars game as an epic unit.

Categories: News, Xbox 360 News

Dug

Eric I’m confused why you brought bungie into this, no-one said bungie wasn’t making more games. And it’s pretty obvious that ensemble knew fans would think there was a sequel, and I’m sure there are plenty quirky names they could have used instead. Also try editing your post before you submit, it gets confusing and annoying to read.
Beau

srry for the long message, MUST READ!!! they said that Bungie was ending with halo wars as a final game in one of their videos on halo wars, i bought it and beat it in 1 day and a 1/2 without even downloading the demo, this halo wars 2 is a maybe BUT DONT GET YOUR HOPES HIGH, their are simple needs to make this game alot better, splitscreen: people say it wouldnt be good because you need as large as space as possible but what if the screen showed the same amount just smaller? also a longer campaign maybe with a covenant campaign, flood players, we need the flood, they could be a mega unit, only able to be made at 4 power and well it takes over bodys it kills (UBER unit) they did say that this was their last though
shadowwolf

hey beau guess what HALO REACH is already coming out all they mean is it will bge the last bungie halo title microsoft and bungie are coming together to continue the hal series and a halo wars 2 seems to be a likely choice to come out after halo reach
chris

Halo wars 2 needs to be made. The only significant changes needed would be unit formations. When you move a lot of units, they tend to get hung up on landmarks or even themselves. That gets annoying. Command and Conquer 3 had a good set up for that. Also maybe a Master Cheif leader and maybe a Flood leader would be cool. I still play the hell out of the first one and would definatly buy a sequell if it ever happens.
Dogman

also after completing it on legendary and watching the credits, afterwards you here serina say “captain, wake up, something’s happened.”
vajeata

Im starting to get upset that there is no real talk of a Halo Wars 2!! WTF its been long enough. I purchased both of the DLC packs, gotten the 100% completion achievement, and am about untouchable online. Its time already. I love this game and will be very disappointed if there is not another one.
http://www.sandmanfloors.net Brandon

I agree with Chris, halo wars 2 needs to be made, and it WAS annoying when units hung up on eachother etc – and maybe they can create something that stops you from rushing all the time, on standard %75 of the time nobody makes it past making their 1st or 2nd reactor !
Flippothewhale

to be fair i thought HW1 was amazing, but the ammount of online nerds that played it after getting all achievements made me very annoyed, need something to separate the new players with the experianced ones, didnt seem fair that i couldnt build up an army and have fun, when i was being attacked by a scarab or being bum rushed by warthogs.
paradocks244744

I agree with everybody!! Halo Wars 2 absolutely needs to be made and maybe new unsc leader powers like anders has ice bomb and maybe a new leader pwer could dropping a flame bomb that burns the units (works great against infantry) i mean that is an amaing power and maybe they could improve the units capabilities like give the covenant a Y ability like the UNSC!!
http://gmail.com caine

i think there should be flood in halo wars 2, with there own abbillitys,there own units, there own base oh add the base is supposed to be just like the covenet and unsc.also they should let you use it on campaign and skirmish to where every one can have fun.
one more thing it shouldn’t start you out with a base only units so you can find one your own and the first base is free because you have no materials. thats all i have to say thank you for reading this and
who ever agrees with me you are right. again thankyou