Ensemble Studios to be shut down

[Darth_Pugwash]

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=20167

Age of Empires series creators Ensemble to be shut down by Microsoft after they complete work on Halo Wars.

Sad news. I spent countless hours playing Age of Empires 2 back in the day.

 

[Thorvald of Lym]

God-damn it. AoE4's gonna suck big time.

Ensemble should do like Bungee and break off... if they can.

 

[mech654]

This sucks. This means no AOM.

 

[azzaman333]

AoE 2 awesome, but AoM and (especially) AoE3 weren't fun.

 

[GoodSarmatian]

God-damn it. AoE4's gonna suck big time.

AoE3 already sucked, so there's no big loss.

 

[Chukchi Husky]

One of the first games that I got was Age of Empires, which I ended up getting three times because of box sets, and about a year ago managed to find Age of Empires 2: The Conquerors in a box set for £3 after years of searching. I played a lot on Age of Empires and Age of Mythology (took a long time to find the expansion), but I haven't played Age of Empires 2 as much. The only one I haven''t got is Age of Empires 3. I may get Halo Wars when it comes out.

It seems a bit strange when reading about them closing the studio, as the reason given seems to be to create a new studio.

 

[DragonHawk]

AoC was one of the best game ever. Those were the good times. AoM and AoE3, not so much.

The question is who will provide support for Halo Wars ? Are they betting on Halo Wars to be shipped 100% working and bug free ? Good luck on that

 

[ArneHD]

AoE 2 was heaven, it's one of the few RTS that I managed to get the hang of.

 

[Chukchi Husky]

The question is who will provide support for Halo Wars ?

The new studio that's being formed.

 

[hossam]

well i doubt that there will be an age of mythology 2 now...which sucks because i loved that game.

 

[Kan' Sharuminar]

That's a bloody shame. Age of Empires was pretty much the game that got me into PC Gaming as a whole, and Age of Kings is still as near perfect a RTS I've ever played.

 

[Dell19]

Ensemble should do like Bungee and break off... if they can.

I'm guessing that the original developers left years ago.

Like Kan, AOE was one of the first computer games I brought and I've spent plenty of hours playing AOE2 online. The tradional kind of RTS seems to have died off partly because its already been mastered and improving the graphics isn't really going to provide a huge benefit.

 

[Kozmos]

AOE 2 was one of the first PC games I've ever played and I have wasted tons of hours just on the tutorial campaign. Damn shame. AOE3 was decent and certainly in vein of the predecessor but it lacked a certain charm the old one had.

 

[Synobun]

Age of Empires 3 was a great game, I didn't play the previous ones, so I don't know if they're better. This kinda sucks...

 

[warpstorm]

Maybe Bruce would be willing to goto Firaxis and team up with Sid again.

 

[Macha]

Bungie were able to break off as they were never that integrated into MS. Ensemble have been effectiviely a MS group for the last few years.

 

[Shylock]

I can still remember the dialogue from the campaign of AoE 2 and Conquerors to this day.