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Following the recent announcement that Microsoft-owned Age Of Empires creator Ensemble Studios would close after the completion of Halo Wars, Gamasutra has discovered that a now-canceled Halo MMO was in development at the studio, unearthing prototype UI and level screenshots of the Ensemble-developed project.

The prototype art, which was at one point made available on an Ensemble-linked online artist portfolio website, further confirms previous rumors that the studio was working on an MMO based on the Bungie-created sci-fi franchise.

Notable, rumors reported in Game Informer magazine in early 2006 claimed that Bungie and Ensemble were teaming up to make a Halo-themed MMO. And, although it was not clear that it was Halo-specific, websites such as 1UP did point out that Ensemble was hiring for an MMO project as early as April 2006.

The title seems to have been in development in 2006 and some of 2007 -- though it's by no means clear that it was the only MMO-related title in development at the studio at that time.

What is clear, however, is that Ensemble's Bruce Shelley mentioned in a June 2008 blog post that they "...set up three prototype teams out of the staff of a major project that we cancelled. After six months of very interesting work, we have now stopped two of those prototypes, with one getting more time to demonstrate the value of its concept."

Thus, it appears that the Halo MMO project was likely internally cancelled some time in mid-late 2007, without any formal announcement from Microsoft that it was ever in development. The below UI mockup and concept/level screenshots also date from the 2006-2007 period.

Gamasutra had a chance to ask Massively.com lead blogger Michael Zenke about the MMO-related elements in the prototype UI screenshot (click through for a higher-res version):

(http://www.gamesetwatch.com/hinterface1s.jpg) (http://www.gamesetwatch.com/hinterface1.jpg)



Massively's Zenke explained the following on the prototype UI (of which there were several posted): "The character pane shows a health bar and 'mana' -- or Psion, as is referred to in this title... The upper right icons are for basic character functions. The one on the far left would most likely be inventory, represented by the outline of a man.

Moving right, I'd guess that's a 'talent tree' screen for customizing your character, most likely a powers menu (a brain to represent the Psion?), a titles or achievements screen represented by the trophy, and a support ticket system represented by the chat bubble icon.

There are many obvious tips of the hat here to the World of Warcraft interface. Simplicity and streamlined play appear to be the object of the game, but it's interesting to see so many strange icons on the hotbar.

From the choice of abilities, it's easy to surmise that that the game would have been some sort of melee/magic brawler. The upper bar has some similarities to the WoW UI modification Titan Panel - a favorite amongst players."

Also included were a number of in-game level pictures, both concept art and in-level shots, and Gamasutra asked 'Louis Wu', webmaster of the unofficial Halo website Halo.bungie.org to interpret them.

(http://www.gamesetwatch.com/hscreen1.jpg)

Of this shot and others in the same series that Gamasutra has not yet printed, Wu commented: "Clearly broken Halo Warthogs, dead marines, a color palette last seen in Halo PC multiplayer levels like 'Infinity'. The presence of an actual Halo in the background of the last shot is also a dead giveaway [as to the game setting]."

(http://www.gamesetwatch.com/hscreen2.jpg)

Of course, the cancellation of the Ensemble version of a Halo MMO doesn't necessarily preclude other Microsoft-sanctioned developers from working on Halo franchise titles.

And with Microsoft's Phil Spencer recently mentioning: "There are more than two or three teams building Halo things right now", it could be that a Halo title with similarly expansive online options is now being tried at another studio. If so, there has been no public information about it to date.

[UPDATE: The 'Gone Is Gone' weblog has posted a full Flickr gallery (http://www.flickr.com/photos/30784486@N04/sets/72157607452469273/) of the concept art and UI mockups for the canceled prototype, sourced from the same art portfolio as Gamasutra's original story.]

A Halo MMO made no sense imo

A Halo MMO made no sense imo

but this is just... bad.

A halo MMOG would've done gangbusters diku or not. As I said on GR, I'm glad it was canceled. As much as I love Ensemble, this was just lazy game design.

You can't read.

I was criticizing them for going Diku but flat out saying that it would've done gangbusters anyway.

But seriously, you can't read. You just got frothy about something you didn't get.  :why_so_serious:

No froth, i don't agree it would do gangbusters. Think about who plays halo, will they get that interface? or like pressing skills?

(http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3152/2881780137_015d888bb5.jpg?v=0)

Am I the only one wondering if this prototype art isn't some kind of April Fool's joke?

I mean.... it's literally WoW interface art with Halo characters. I know the MMO industry is based on cloning everyone's ideas iteration over innovation, but this is just... bad.

A Halo MMO made no sense imo

I thought this too. It looks very ordinary, even for a MMO in pre-alpha state. Either the devs were WoW-fanbois who copied homaged WoW slavishly, or the idea was to get the prototype out so quickly and so cheaply that no original thought was put in.

I'm a pretty damn big Halo fan boy and even I think a Halo MMO would've been incredibly dumb.

Shack:  What were the circumstances behind the Halo MMO?

Dave Pottinger: 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.

Shack: So you guys were feeling good about it?

Dave Pottinger: Yeah, we were happy with it. It was a long road to go, and we had proved the gameplay we wanted to prove.

It actually turned out--we ended up reusing a lot of the people. We had hired people who were excited about making a Halo game, and we used them on Phoenix--Phoenix is the Halo Wars codename. And a lot of that stuff that we picked up was able to be reused. So we didn't lose everything. It wasn't all wasted.

Shack: From the screenshots that were leaked, it seemed very World of Warcraft-esque. Was that your model?

Dave Pottinger: Yeah. It's a popular one.

Shack: Was the concept such that there were Covenant and UNSC factions, in the same way that WoW has Horde and Alliance?

Dave Pottinger: It was more broken up than that. The Covenant weren't quite the Covenant yet.

That idea of that sort of stylized approach to Halo was something that we were very interested in, in terms of the art. Some of the art that leaked out wasn't art that was actually in the game, so people were a little more torqued than they needed to be.

But it felt very Halo--we had a combat demo that felt like a very action-oriented MMO, but still had that MMO depth. So it was very analogous to the RTS that we worked on.

Shack: So you didn't have plans to go for a more FPS-style game.

Dave Pottinger: It was definitely more of a classic MMO, but it still had that very action feel. Definitely more actiony than WoW.

His bit about the Covenant makes no sense.

He was just stumbling around groping for an answer as to why it wasn't exactly like WoW.

If it was a prequel to Halo, it couldn't have the Master Chief, so yeah, made no sense.

However, he could have mis-remembered it and meant that Covenant would have split after Halo 3... or something.

I'm guessing it was a prequel. And no, you can't have Master Chief, per se, but you can have Spartans. Remember, there were originally quite a few of them (though I don't pretend to know exact numbers). My guess? The game was something about the early war or first encounters with the Covenant.

Still, the presence of an actual Halo makes no sense in that context since it was clearly a first encounter for humanity in the first game.

I thought Spartans were fairly rare, with Master Chief being one of the first (which is why the Covenant fear him so).

As the story goes, they are rare in that their training planet was demolished and Master Chief is one of the few who fought their way out alive as a child/young man.

I'm a pretty damn big Halo fan boy and even I think a Halo MMO would've been incredibly dumb.

The problem with copying any existing success is that you can't copy the freshness.