Years ago, Microsoft and developer Ensemble Studios were working on a Halo MMO project. The game never materialized, though, and now one of its developers, Rob Fermier, has shared some further insight into the game and what it was aspiring to be.
Fermier said part of the appeal of making a Halo MMO was that the developers personally enjoyed MMOs in general. "I still play World of Warcraft to this day, from day one," Fermier told PC Gamer. "And it was a chance for us to bring something more action-oriented."
Fermier went on to say that, from his view, no one has made a true "action MMO," and this was what the Halo project was trying to do.
"There have been a number of MMOs that have had action-based elements. But we had in that prototype a great sequence where you had a bunch of vehicular action, and a bunch of more traditional MMO cooldown-management action, and it was all in this open world," he said.
Halo is known for its solid shooting mechanics, and translating this to an MMO game was a challenge. "We had a lot of work to figure out how that was ultimately going to land," Fermier said.
Bungie, which created the Halo series, was not involved in the development of the Halo MMO prototype, but Fermier said he expected that Bungie would be called in to provide input had the game gone ahead. Another consideration was that, had the game advanced to production, Ensemble would have needed to balance respecting and honoring Halo's history while putting a unique stamp of its own on the game. "There are a lot of interesting challenges around that," Fermier said.
The game was never made, and Fermier said this might have been due to the costs associated with taking on such a large-scale endeavor. "It would have been very expensive, and it would have taken a big commitment that at the time clearly Microsoft wasn't willing to do," he said.
Finally, Fermier pointed out that Blizzard has enjoyed ongoing success with its genre-defining MMO World of Warcraft, and Microsoft could "bring that [model] to other settings," but he acknowledged that he has no insight into what Microsoft is up to these days.
He thinks Microsoft could absolutely do it now, though. "I have no visibility into what they're doing at all right now, but if I were Microsoft Games, I would definitely be figuring out how to use some of the genius that Blizzard has developed over the years in World of Warcraft and bring that to other settings."
Fermier is an industry veteran, having worked on the original System Shock as its lead programmer at Looking Glass in the '90s. He then co-founded Irrational Games before joining Ensemble in 1999. He spent nearly a decade there before joining Robot Entertainment in 2009 where he worked on Ages of Empires Online and Orcs Must Die.
He left Robot in 2018 and founded his own company, C Prompt Games, which launched Heretic Operative in 2019 and is now working on an unannounced strategy game.
While the Halo MMO never came out, Ensemble did get to work on the Halo series with Halo Wars in 2009.
2026 is the 25th anniversary of the Halo series, and Microsoft is celebrating the occasion with a new game, Halo: Campaign Evolved, and it's coming to PS5.
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Fermier said part of the appeal of making a Halo MMO was that the developers personally enjoyed MMOs in general. "I still play World of Warcraft to this day, from day one," Fermier told PC Gamer. "And it was a chance for us to bring something more action-oriented."
Fermier went on to say that, from his view, no one has made a true "action MMO," and this was what the Halo project was trying to do.
"There have been a number of MMOs that have had action-based elements. But we had in that prototype a great sequence where you had a bunch of vehicular action, and a bunch of more traditional MMO cooldown-management action, and it was all in this open world," he said.
Halo is known for its solid shooting mechanics, and translating this to an MMO game was a challenge. "We had a lot of work to figure out how that was ultimately going to land," Fermier said.
Bungie, which created the Halo series, was not involved in the development of the Halo MMO prototype, but Fermier said he expected that Bungie would be called in to provide input had the game gone ahead. Another consideration was that, had the game advanced to production, Ensemble would have needed to balance respecting and honoring Halo's history while putting a unique stamp of its own on the game. "There are a lot of interesting challenges around that," Fermier said.
The game was never made, and Fermier said this might have been due to the costs associated with taking on such a large-scale endeavor. "It would have been very expensive, and it would have taken a big commitment that at the time clearly Microsoft wasn't willing to do," he said.
Finally, Fermier pointed out that Blizzard has enjoyed ongoing success with its genre-defining MMO World of Warcraft, and Microsoft could "bring that [model] to other settings," but he acknowledged that he has no insight into what Microsoft is up to these days.
He thinks Microsoft could absolutely do it now, though. "I have no visibility into what they're doing at all right now, but if I were Microsoft Games, I would definitely be figuring out how to use some of the genius that Blizzard has developed over the years in World of Warcraft and bring that to other settings."
Fermier is an industry veteran, having worked on the original System Shock as its lead programmer at Looking Glass in the '90s. He then co-founded Irrational Games before joining Ensemble in 1999. He spent nearly a decade there before joining Robot Entertainment in 2009 where he worked on Ages of Empires Online and Orcs Must Die.
He left Robot in 2018 and founded his own company, C Prompt Games, which launched Heretic Operative in 2019 and is now working on an unannounced strategy game.
While the Halo MMO never came out, Ensemble did get to work on the Halo series with Halo Wars in 2009.
2026 is the 25th anniversary of the Halo series, and Microsoft is celebrating the occasion with a new game, Halo: Campaign Evolved, and it's coming to PS5.
Source