Ensemble Says Halo Wars Made Them Understand Halo Fans

Ensemble Studios is one of the most respected RTS (Real Time Strategy) game developers out there, being responsible for the very successful Age of Empires franchise. Sadly, as we reported some time ago, the studio is closing down due to the fact that Microsoft, the owner, considered that the titles in the portfolio of the studio did not have profit potential, and decided that their latest project, the Halo Wars game, would be their last.

This fact was met with a lot of disapproval from the gaming community, as Ensemble offered a lot of high quality games, but there was nothing fans could do. The community is now eagerly anticipating the studio’s magnum opus, the Halo Wars strategy title, which promises to give players the most balanced and user friendly strategy experience on the Xbox 360, located in the popular Halo universe.

Graeme Devine, one of the executives of Ensemble has recently talked about the development process of Halo Wars, saying that the last four years had been a glorious ride, offering the team really great moments. During the reminiscence of this development cycle, Devine offered an interesting tidbit of information regarding the fact that the tests made on focus groups gave Ensemble the chance to really get acquainted with the Halo players.

“Our first focus group was actually Halo fans. I remember that. It was interesting, because one of the first things we learned was how much hardcore Halo fans like throwing grenades. It seemed like a really funny thing to get out of the control test, but they all would come up and say, 'This trigger needs to throw grenades!' Over and over and over again, that was direct feedback -- 'We need to be able to throw grenades!' So, you can throw grenades now.”

Devine added that there is quite a big difference between Halo players and regular RTS players regarding mentality and their point of view on battles.

All in all, these are very interesting statements, which really reflect how the last game made by the studio has affected the team. Let's just hope that Ensemble will offer a great experience through this final release.