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Ensemble says good-bye

While studio closures are becoming depressingly common, few of the outfits to be shuttered have carried with them the pedigree of Ensemble Studios. Known for its tremendously successful real-time strategy series Age of Empires, Ensemble Studios has been living on borrowed time since September, when Microsoft confirmed it would be closing the developer after it had completed work on the Xbox 360-exclusive Halo Wars.

At the time, Age of Empires creator Bruce Shelley blogged on the studio's official Web site about the team's reaction to the news and revealed that a number of core Ensemble developers (sans Shelley) would be striking out to form their own new company. Now in what he expects to be the site's final blog entry, Shelley said that isn't the only potential phoenix rising from the Ensemble ashes.

"There are at least two new studios being formed by ES employees and I expect both to do very well," Shelley wrote. "There were a lot of outstanding game developers here and it will be interesting to see how and what they do, both individually and as new groups, in the years ahead."

In the rest of the post, Shelley updated readers about Halo Wars' plans and ongoing support for Age of Empires and shared a peek at the developer's bittersweet party to celebrate the completion of its final game.

"It is hard to believe that the day has finally come when Ensemble Studios closes its doors and we move on to whatever is next," Shelley said, adding, "It is worth mentioning that about 60 percent of the people who worked on Age of Empires I were with the studio to the end. And it was a really special group of people who pulled together for the long hours and hard work to finish our last game to our standards."

This made me smile, AoE is the worst game i have ever played.

AOE and AOM are awesome games how can you say that, you oblivously have no perspective of good and bad games

tho AOE 3 isnt that good xD

loved aoe2, loved aom, aoe3 kinda got boring after a while for me... :S
looking forward to aoe4, if they ever make it with 1 of their new studios.

aoe2 was the best RTS

To be honest so far, game companies seem to be unaffected by the financial crisis thats hitting most of the world atm.

WRONG

sony (oblivously been effected), cutting back job, studios closing left right and center, recruitment at a low

if i had the time i would type out some articles in my game magazine which goes into details about it this months issue

Damn it. I love AoE. Was the first game I ever played *was like 7ish*. Woot for AoE 1. The second one is by far the best though.

O no I used to love AOE grrrrr only RTS i played. Well Command & Conquer was awesome too but no more AOE.



Yeah your wrong I have alot of game studios that are bout 15 mins from my house and nowadays they arent hiring they will take u in as an intern but I already have that. Thats why for future game makers dont just focus on games if you can program and do art then you can always have a source of income. I dont work but I have clients that I DO websites for and the internships help. I hate school though

yeh im going to try get into the game industry but im gona learn art and 3d moddeling so i can either do my own concept art or work in either position

loved Age of Empires. It was my first game. age1 was awesome even though I didnt even know wth I was doing. age 2 was awesome by standard. age3 was almost just as good, and had the best graffics a strategy game could have.

I hope one day, when the economic crysis is over, that they may rejoin as the old ES with a kickass new name and make at least one more Age of Empires

Yeah I said was the best

a lot better than tiberian sun, god that game was shit.