Secondo quanto riportato in un recente comunicato, Microsoft è intenzionata a chiudere i battenti di Esemble Studios, azienda sviluppatrice della pluripremiata saga di Age of Empires. Il team di ES continuerà lo sviluppo e il completamento di Halo Wars e manterrà un team di sviluppo per quest’ultimo.
Le principali motivazioni che hanno spinto Microsoft ad abbandonare lo sviluppo di giochi RTS e l’impossibilità di proporli anche per le console ed in primis Xbox 360.
Qualche avvisiglia era stata già data comunque dalla serie Age of Empires III, dove si era persa quella particolare giocabilità dei capitoli precedenti. Un segno premonitore?
Di seguito il comunicato di Microsoft:
"The team at Ensemble has made invaluable contributions to the games
industry with their Age of Empires and Age of Mythology games and with
the highly anticipated release of Halo Wars,"
"This decision does not reflect at all on Ensemble’s talent or the
quality of Halo Wars–in fact, many people who have had a chance to
test drive Halo Wars agree that it is on track to being a fantastic
game."
Ensemble’s "leadership team" will form a new development house and has
already entered into an agreement with the publisher to continue
supporting Halo Wars post-launch, "as well as work on other projects
with Microsoft Game Studios."
"This was a fiscally rooted decision that keeps MGS on its growth
path. While the decision to dissolve Ensemble was not an easy one,
Microsoft is working to place as many Ensemble employees who do not
move to the newly formed studio into open positions within Microsoft as
possible."
