Following a number of reports that indicated Halo Wars developer Ensemble Studios would be closing following the release of the Halo-themed RTS yesterday, Microsoft confirmed that it would be closing the developer best known for its work on the Age of Empires series.

An official statement (via Gamasutra) confirming the news reads in part:

“Microsoft has decided to close Ensemble Studios following the completion of Halo Wars. After the closure, the Ensemble leadership team will form a new studio and has agreed to provide ongoing support for Halo Wars as well as work on other projects with Microsoft Game Studios.

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.

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.”

It’s reassuring to hear that at least some of Ensemble’s staff will continue to support Halo Wars even after the company is closed but it doesn’t make the announcement of a storied developer closing its doors after more than a decade any less shocking.

If a rumor being reported by Shacknews proves to be true, Halo Wars and Age of Empires developer Ensemble Studios will soon be closing up shop in a move eerily similar to FASA Studio last year as it approached the release of Shadowrun. The story claims that multiple independent sources have indicated that Ensemble will be shutting down following the release of Halo Wars, currently slated for sometime in early 2009.

Ensemble staff who aren’t at work on Halo Wars have reportedly been laid off today, while those who are on the project “have been offered incentives to stay on the project until completion.” This certainly throws the game’s post-release support into question, especially considering Ensemble is a developer that traditionally favors releasing expansion packs.

The Microsoft-owned developer was founded in 1995. We’ve reached out to Ensemble for comment but have yet to receive any word back at this time.

Here are some of the most memorable Oh. My. God!!! gaming moments gathered together by the Edge staff. The selections include the latest games back to videogames from the media’s infancy. Their picks include Final Fantasy VII Aeris’ death, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion The Dark Brotherhood beckons quest line, BioShock “Would you kindly” sequence and from Portal, The “Aperture Science Handheld Portal Device.”

I have to fully agree with most their choices; all ten pages of wow gaming moments. My own personal favorite is The Secret of Monkey Island training sequence when Guybrush Threepwood learns the art of Insult Sword Fighting. I have to warn gamers that some of these OMG moments are spoilers and there’s no warning as to which entries qualify.

Bungie issued a video acceptance speech at the Edge Awards earlier this month which sparked any number of rumors, including the addition of bots and support for Halo 3 single-player objects and NPCs being added to Forge. All of those dreams were shot down this past week as Bungie issued a denial on all of these rumors in its most recent Weekly Update.

Former 1UP News Editor turned Bungie writer extraordinaire Luke Smith issued the following clarification:

There will be no insertion of Campaign objects, enemies or friendlies via the Forge as folks have speculated. There will be no “bots” added to the game. The “set” on Rat’s Nest was designed to appear like a backlot of a film set, a holding area, not some depiction of a brand-new feature that implements Campaign objects into multiplayer. Do consider this issue a closed one. Calm yourselves down, pump the brakes, and take a breath.

There’s no reading in between the lines there; looks like we’re simply not going to be seeing that functionality in Halo 3. On the bright side, we do have a solid date for the second title update to Halo 3 and the September playlist update — the two will be released simultaneously on September 16. Expect to see modified versions of maps, including versions of Epitaph and Snowbound with either zero or a reduced number of shield doors, Sandtrap without the giant Elephant vehicle, and plenty of other changes which you can read about in depth at Bungie.net.

What a week it has been! More accusations of GTA related crime sprees sweeping the globe, sadly losing the hilariously astute Bernie Mac, the Olympics starting off with a huge bang and a stabbing in China, Clay Aiken’s record producer giving birth to his child, and rumors of a curse surrounding “The Dark Knight” were flying across the internet like a banshee. What awaits us next week in the world of gaming and other things not as important (I jest) who knows.

What I DO know, is that only five demos hit FileFront this week and while that is a paltry sum, a couple of them seem to be pretty popular believe it or not.

So, without further ado, here they are:

• Ironclads: American Civil War: Playable demo of the historical naval simulator Ironclads: American Civil War

• Drakensang: The Dark Eye German: DTP Entertainment has released a playable demo of Drakensang: The Dark Eye, allowing you to try out this PC adaptation of Germany’s most popular pen & paper RPG.

• Lights of Dreams: The Angelical Blade 2.30: Xilvan (Xylvan) Design has released an updated demo of Lights of Dreams: The Angelical Blade.

• Candy World The Golden Bones Tome II v1.30: Xilvan Design has released a new demo for Candy World: The Golden Bones Tome II.

• Birth of America II : Wars in America: Birth of America II: Wars in America 1750-1815 follows the successful historical strategy videogame Birth of America, AGEOD’s American Civil War and Napoleon’s Campaigns.

The patches were aplenty as usual, and I have listed the most downloaded ones below. There were 17 in all, so check the full list on FileFront to see if one is available for your game.

• The Guild 2 Patch 1.4 – Protected
• Myth War II Online v1.0.4.23 Client Patch
• Halo Custom Edition 1.0.8.616
• Halo 2 v1.01 Revised Patch
• Atlantica Online Beta Patch

As always, for the full list of both demos and patches, click here and here. See you next week.

Seems I spoke too soon. Earlier this morning, details were released on the Collector’s Edition of Fable 2, which listed — among several other items — an “otherwordly bonus.” Well, from the looks of some new screenshots for the game, it seems that “bonus” looks like Medieval re-imagining of Halo’s Master Chief. I have no idea whether this is a character or a suit of armor or what, but it certainly looks sweet. Okay, now I could see why someone would want to spend the extra dough on the Collector’s Edition of the game.

The World of Western RPGs is a new article exploring the evolution of the Western RPG. The piece is a companion to a previous article on Asian RPGs.

The author starts off by talking about how broad a term RPG is and how practically worthless it is for describing a game. He uses Bioware and Bethesda to make his point in that these developers are both know for their RPGs, but have very different styles. He then goes on at length defining what different concepts associated to the RPG mean to him personally so that the reader can be on the same page when he gets down to the meat of the piece.

Western RPGs were born from “numbers and dungeons” games inspired by pen and paper RPGs. Over the year they have added art and split into two basic types; world focused and story focused RPGs. The article will take from the infancy of the form to todays modern vastly differentiated RPGs. You find references to Wizardry, Ultima, Might and Magic and the Elder Scrolls as well as Fallout, Diablo, Gold Box and Mass Effect along the way. Just remember this one important piece of advice as you explore RPGs:

Keep in mind that the word “classic” is not a synonym for “good”.

I heartily recommend this work for gamers who are interested in game design or die hard RPG fans.

via Moby Games

People who worry that in five years we’ll be facing the impending launches of Halo Tennis 4 Master Chief Racing 2 are completely understandable. It’s the most popular franchise in Microsoft’s catalog, and if you’ve seen what has happened to Mario and Sonic over the years, it doesn’t take much of a leap to imagine terrible spinoff after terrible spinoff.

At Comic-Con last week, Frank O’Connor (Bungie’s former community manager who now oversees the Halo franchise at Microsoft) explained that there are a lot of opportunities to delve into the Halo universe, but they don’t plan on abusing the franchise, reports Eurogamer.

“The Halo universe is really, really big now,” he said. “Literally the Halo games have only covered one year; a couple of months within a year in fact.

“We have a really detailed story bible, we do really have it all planned out. There are so many areas of the universe to explore, the real challenge is picking which is the most exciting area for people. Is it UNSC Marines fighting alongside Spartans against the Covenant? Or is it what happens next after Master Chief’s appearance in Halo 3?”

“We have a well defined, carefully orchestrated, properly planned universe to explore not exploit,” O’Connor continued. “And that’s the tricky part: what are the things people want to do? We have to pick things that people want. That’s what you see with the range of McFarlane toys – people want their armour permutation.

“Give them things they really want and make sure they’re high quality is the formula.”

There are at least three Halo games in development right now between Bungie, Peter Jackson, and Ensemble with Halo Wars. Even as a Halo fanatic, I really don’t want to see too many Halo games released, because I’ve seen what that can do to a franchise. Hopefully Frankie is right and we don’t see Master Chief at the Olympics anytime soon.

For the first time since the last week in January, Halo 3 has regained the its number one spot in the Xbox 360 top Live titles list. The list is based upon the number of unique users playing each game.

Halo has trailed behind Grand Theft Auto IV and/or Call of Duty 4 every week since the week of January 21. The July 7 release of the Cold Storage map (which was free of charge) likely helped, as did the pending E3 announcement about Bungie’s next Halo project — one which never came. Microsoft has said it will instead be showcasing the mysterious new Halo game at a dedicated event where they can do the game “more justice.”

Anyone want to guess if the game will hold onto its lead for a second week? I’m gonna go ahead and guess that it will, based on my expert analysis of absolutely nothing.

Unhappy that the new Halo hasn’t made an appearance at E3? Well, don’t hold your breath for a last second showing to steal the show on its last day — Microsoft is waiting to now show the game at a dedicated event where they can do it more justice, according to Don Mattrick.

Originally clocking in at 2 1/2 hours, the game’s removal from Microsoft’s press conference helped to cut that time down to 90 minutes. “We had an embarrassment of riches,” Mattrick told the LA Times. “We felt we could do this game more justice with a more dedicated event.”

“Two big kahunas were left out of the show, and we were still able to deliver a strong performance,” Mattrick said, referring to the exclusive content Rockstar has in store for Grand Theft Auto IV.

Luke Smith has also posted some answers to the most asked questions over on Bungie.net:

1. OMG! The announce was posted at 7! This is all part of the plan.

The news was broken to us shortly before 7 p.m. and we decided to keep with tradition to make a clean break.

2. Why leave the splash page up if it’s not happening?

We left the splash page up for the folks who didn’t see the message or were planning on tuning in the following morning before the news vanished into Bungie.net’s ether.

3. But Harold Ryan is only a TESTER this has to be fake!

Harold was a tester, but assumed the position of President a while ago. Crazy Wiki’s and their misinformation.

I get the feeling that we’ll be hearing more about this new Halo once Sony starts building up more buzz as we get closer to the release of Resistance 2 and LittleBigPlanet.