Halo MMO was well underway

Dave Pottinger, the tech boss at ill-fated Microsoft owned studio and Halo Wars developer Ensemble, has stated that the long-rumoured Halo MMO had been green lit and was well underway before the Xbox 360 platform holder pulled the plug on the project.

Speaking to Shacknews, Pottinger explained: “The Halo IP was a great IP to launch an MMO with. We worked on it for a long time. We had staffed up an almost 40 person team. And then there was some reorganisation at Microsoft, and the new bosses thought it wasn’t the best idea anymore. It had actually been green-lit, and then it got cancelled after that.

“We were happy with it. It was a long road to go, and we had proved the gameplay we wanted to prove. We ended up reusing a lot of the people. We had hired people who were excited about making a Halo game, and we used them on Halo Wars.”

And when asked if the Halo MMO was based on the World of Warcraft model, Pottinger added: “Yeah. It’s a popular one. But it felt very Halo. It was definitely more of a classic MMO, but it still had that very action feel – definitely more actiony than WoW.”