We've heard rumblings about a canceled Halo MMO for ages, but it's not every day that someone with direct experience working on a potential game steps up to the plate with more information. Alleged information, mind you, but I find it hard to believe that game designer Sandy Petersen, formerly of the shuttered studio behind the project, would suddenly come up with something after all these years.
Ensemble Studios spearheaded the “gigantic MMO” Halo, codenamed Titan. A lot of work has been done. It was reportedly quite deep into its development when the team behind the Age of Empires franchise and the original Halo Wars was shut down by its overlords at Microsoft in 2009.
Three-year contract
If you take Petersen's word for it, one Don Mattrick, former head of Xbox, was responsible for Project Titan's infamous end. Internally, the Halo MMO was estimated to take “3.5 years if we get it right”. The problem was that Mattrick's stock bonus was intrinsically tied to Microsoft's gaming revenue over a three-year process.
Ensemble Studios took on massively multiplayer online role-playing games back when they were all the rage. Money would have to be spent all the time, without just change in the pocket, because what was then perceived as especially long time. “So by firing ALL of Ensemble,” Petersen asserts, “[Mattrick] he didn't have to pay for our expensive studio for 3 years and he didn't care about Titan.”
As Petersen notes, Microsoft and Ensemble Studios shared the belief that the “lowest estimate” of the MMO's total revenue was $1.1 billion. Not exactly pocket friendly either. In fact, it would certainly be a truckload of profit, regardless of the operating costs behind the development process. But 3.5 years is a thorough crossover with Don Mattrick's bonus period. Again, we only have one developer claim; however, it is not so difficult to imagine such a turn of events.
Sandy Petersen's gaming legacy is significant. Wikipedia cites his most notable works as 1981's Call of Cthulhu, followed by the original Doom, its first of many sequels, and then Quake just two years later in 1996. Move over here, but bless you and your team, Petersen, because Quake was mine jam. However, there is much more to be said for the veteran creator; helped build Sid Meier's Pirates!, the first Civilization, and the OG trio of Age of Empires games. Oh, and also the aforementioned Halo Wars.
For the defunct Halo MMO, Petersen explains in the above tweets that he “was in charge of building the universe, the history of the planets, the alien species, etc. […] We had questlines worked out, homeworlds for all species, etc., etc.” The Forerunners and Covenant were the faction choices. It all follows – the game is, after all, set “tens of thousands of years ago, before the Halos were unleashed and wiped out all sentient life in the Galaxy.”
Mattrick left Xbox in 2013 where he went on to lead Zynga for two years before resigning rather abruptly in 2015. Things haven't been exactly ideal for the Xbox lately, just in case you weren't, um, somehow clueless.
