New dev working on Halo Wars DLC

By Tom Bramwell Published 18 February, 2009

Robot lumbers out of Ensemble ashes.

Robot Entertainment, a new Texan game developer created by many of the original founders of Ensemble Studios, has confirmed that it is working on downloadable content for Halo Wars.

The newly minted company, headed up by Ensemble founder Tony Goodman, will also "support online gaming and community for both Age of Empires and Halo Wars", according to its press release.

"Additionally, Robot is developing its own original IP." This has led to speculation that an unannounced, former Ensemble project has made the transition as well, although there's nothing to suggest that in Robot's press release.

"The video game industry is in a state of upheaval," Goodman said, "not just games, but the entire landscape. Everything is changing: where we buy games, how we buy games, how much we pay, how long we play, who we play them with.

"As a fast-moving independent team of game developers, industry leaders and market experts, Robot Entertainment is ideally positioned to play a transformative role in the industry's future."

The news that Robot will support Halo Wars expands on comments made by Microsoft-based producer Jason Pace in an interview with Eurogamer last month.

"Ensemble is, as I'm sure you know, forming a new company, and they will be helping us support the title moving forward, so: bug patches, any kind of fixes - we'll have all those folks available to work on it," he said, so we can probably also expect our old euphemistic friends the 'title updates' to venture forth from Robot as well.

In the aftermath of Ensemble's closure, announced last September, Microsoft quickly added that it still owned the Age of Empires IP, traditionally developed by Ensemble. Whether Robot's involvement with that goes beyond "online gaming and community" support remains to be seen.

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About Tom Bramwell

Tom is Operations director of Eurogamer Network and Editor-at-Large of Eurogamer.net. He joined the company in February 2000.

Read more articles from Tom by visiting the Tom Bramwell archive page.

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Comments (7) Latest comment 3 years ago

Comments threads automatically close after 30 days, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • DFawkes #1 3 years ago

    I'm not sure this'll be all good. I've seen plenty of PC RTS expansions that don't use the original dev and lose something in translation. Hopefully there will be enough Ensemble staff to stop that.

    Still good that there will be something at least.
    Edited by 1 at 18/02/09 @ 09:06

  • Britesparc Verified Creative, ITV #2 3 years ago

    Yeah, it looks like they cherry-picked the best Ensemble staff, moved them to a new studio then shut Ensemble. Obviously there's need for cost-cutting and whatnot, but quite why they didn't just lay off staff from Ensemble but keep the studio open I don't know.

    Anyway, at least AOE & HW will be supported, and hopefully we'll have some Ensemble-flavoured sequels and new IP.

  • alimokrane #3 3 years ago

    @Britesparc

    Indeed. I just dont get either. I mean they could have done the same thing the did with Bungie. Give the studio its freedom, let them lay off & restructure as needed. Anyhow, it doesnt matter now to those who know about the studio but the newely formed studio would have to build its reputation again for the mainstream. Working on AOE & HW add ons could just do that.

    I cant wait to see what they come up as new IP, u reckon it's going to be an RTS again ? I hope they do something different.

  • AphoticCosmos #4 3 years ago

    I'm already sold on Halo Wars simply from the demo - high quality CGI-based storyline + engrossing yet visceral RTS pew-pew + Halo universe? Count me in! It's good to see that the new Robot studio will continue to support it, hopefully they'll do a sequel, too [assuming there is room for one]

  • Pastici #5 3 years ago

    I rather liked the Halo Wars demo, much better than I thought but it felt like it was missing something.

  • DFawkes #6 3 years ago

    I loved the demo. I never, ever pre-order anything - well, Pokemon, Nintendogs and Doom 3 Xbox aside. And MGS4. Okay, so I pre-ordered a few things, but never and RTS, and I have for this.

  • Kilroy #7 3 years ago

    A Covenant campaign, please.
    And also some Flood missions, if that's not too much to ask for.