Last year, the news that
a Halo MMO was once in development left us all wondering "what if?". The game was being made by Ensemble Studios, who put out the Xbox 360 RTS
Halo Wars. The screenshot that was plastered over
most stories about the cancellation looked decidedly
World of Warcraft-y, and an Ensemble representative
later said that the more advanced versions of the game fit the
Halo theme much better. Perhaps it looked
a bit like this. Some
internet sleuthery on fansite Halo.Bungie.Org has uncovered
this gallery of concept art from former Ensemble Studios artist
Dylan Cole. The art doesn't appear to be from
Halo Wars, and our friends at Joystiq
raised the question: could this be from the canceled
Halo MMO?
The art is marked as being from the "
Halo Universe", which may simply be referring to the general
Halo world -- but maybe it isn't. At the moment it's all speculation, and Joystiq has contacted Dylan Cole to see if anything can be cleared up. Whatever it was for, it's some fine work and well worth checking out, particularly for
Halo fans (of which we hear there are a few). Start at page one of the gallery
here.
Sep 22nd 2009 at 1:00PM
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
spamero said on 1:18PM 9-22-2009
Wow.. that's spectacular... but this would be laggy as hell ^^
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snowleopard233 said on 1:44PM 9-22-2009
Either way, this is some spectacular art.
Though, the only way I’d play a halo mmo would be if its fps. Anything else would feel like a downgrade.
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Evalia Magic said on 2:00PM 9-22-2009
the marking of Ensemble Studios makes me think probably not MMO: Ensemble were mostly only really known for their RTS games.
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Clockwork said on 2:06PM 9-22-2009
As if I wasn't disappointed enough that the Halo MMOG got cancelled.
I'm not certain how much I'd care for an MMORPG or MMOFPSRPG a la Tabula Rasa set in the Halo Universe, but man I would have liked to have given it a shot.
Beautiful artwork. I'm envious of the people who can create things like this straight from their heads.
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dave said on 2:43PM 9-22-2009
The MMO is crying out for a **decent** FPS-MMO right now. The problem is how do you tie the two genres together? FPS is twitch based and MMOs are fairly repetitive. TF2 has come close to it but obviously you're restricted to one map and 20 minutes of fun.
If someone could extend that to an open world that hard fast twitch/FPS style dungeons I would give my credit card details for life (providing it looked nice!)
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crsh said on 3:45PM 9-22-2009
It honestly could be anything, from a Halo MMO set before the war broke out, to a Star Wars heaven to a new cinematic Final Fantasy feature, the look is well done but completely generic at this point.
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Lethality said on 3:20PM 9-22-2009
It's from the cancelled Halo movie.
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Chimpo said on 3:55PM 9-22-2009
Source please?
Anonymous said on 4:00PM 9-22-2009
That seems more likely, as some of the other drawings in that gallary are from Pirates of the Carribean. Hopefully Steven Spielburg will pick up the Halo movie and start making it again.
vine said on 2:26AM 9-23-2009
Wherever it's from, the artwork is amazing, would like to know who actually painted it.
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Digest said on 7:37AM 9-23-2009
I don't get it why most of people love Halo. It's just like any FPS out there. I sure do have played it. But from the hype behind it, I think its really over its head. If there is one FPS that rocks my taste would be Half Life.
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DrunkenPandaren said on 2:00AM 9-24-2009
It's the lore. Which is a lot deeper then what the games are just displaying.
srinivasaimprod said on 3:58PM 10-15-2009
I love the Halo series because of the story line. it is like an interactive movie. weapons and gameplay have a good balance, especially the first Halo game.
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