Ensemble Studios Finishing Halo Wars, Then Shutting Down

This a confusing and strange decision by Microsoft Game Studios.  Ensemble has made some of the most important RTS games in the genre.  This is a real bummer.

It's the crazy world of game development in action!  Never seems to function like any other industry...

That sucks!

Wow, what? This is a little shocking. Ensemble's games got me into the RTS genre. This is totally crazy, they're gonna be gone? I'll never see Age of Mythology 2? Christ!

I've had it with MS. Esemble Studios is fantastic. R.I.P

This is a huge bummer.

Ack! So who will be designing AoE IV? I was so looking forward to moving through the War, Atomic and Space ages.

Slimming down?  I'm sorry, you must've not read the statement.  They are CLOSING DOWN THE ENTIRE STUDIO!!!  There's a difference.

Calm down people.  They probably added a bunch of staff to help make Halo Wars, and this is probably just part of slimming down and re-tooling for their next project.

Wow...so now do we need to shut down all the threads in the forums about Ensemble shutting down?  o.O  lol

Dude, NOOO!!  Ensemble made some damn good games - I loved (and still love) Age of Empires.  AoE2  was an amazing game.  I hope Halo Wars turns out to be a good game, and the Ensemble crew goes on to make more awesome RTS's

This is indeed sad news. If the quality of their games was in question, I can understand their decision, but Ensemble studios has a fine track record. I just don't understand corporate heads.

Damn...  Microsoft is totally screwing an epic developing company.  Hopefully an AOE 4 will exist eventually...

I agree that this does not bode well for Halo Wars though.  Not that I thought it was going to be particularly good anyway, but ehh.  There was hope.

This is a shame - AOE is legendary as the golden standard for RTS games. My friends and I still fire up AOE2 for a LAN match when we're done fragging each other at our little casual LAN parties. Sure, AOE3 wasn't perfect, but it was still pretty good, and it's sad to know there will never be an AOE4, or at least one made by the Ensemble guys.

This is just further proof that Microsoft is a bunch of assbags.

Love ensemble. I can't wait to play halo wars and anything else their new company is going to make.

Wow, that's a shame. Any reasoning mentioned behind the closing?

Microsoft Game Studios really looks like its doing all the wrong moves...

Dont they have a long term plan for stuff, like being able to actually make games, whos left ? Turn 10 ... is that it ? Forza is great but MS really needs solid studio support to have great games they cant count on timed exclusives all the time,, Nintendo and Sony have huge 1st party teams...

Wow. Though most of the employees will allegedly still have jobs, closing Ensemble seems so strange. AOE has always been a fantastic (and successful, no?) franchise, and it's sad to see the original dev go away.

how did this happen? I was under the impression that Ensemble was doing fairly well atm. Kinda strange if you ask me, I don't think this looks good for Halo Wars

this really sucks imagine that after making a potentially kickass game they get the boot thats messed up

I'm not buying the corporate hyperbole. This isn't a good thing for Halo Wars.

A long "Nooooo!" to this news. Ensemble is legendary. At least they'll be pulling an Obsidian in wrangling their team back together to form a new studio, but still, I have to say it's a sad, sad day for those of us who grew up on Age of Empires, and still think it is the greatest RTS series of all time.

They better try to give as many jobs as possible to the employees. That's always the worst part. Who cares about the games when you know people are losing their jobs....