It's the developer behind Age of Empires, one of the most successful videogame franchises of all time. It's a financial success, with its flagship franchise recording sales of over 20 million copies.

The company's latest title, Halo Wars, is a console RTS based on the hugely popular shooter series. By all accounts, this was a studio poised to conquer new territory with its dependable design and a popular property.

Which is why it was so confusing when owner Microsoft announced its intention to close Ensemble Studios following the completion of Halo Wars.

Recently I sat down to talk with Ensemble director of technology Dave Pottinger, who quickly echoed that confusion by saying Microsoft's decision "honestly doesn't make a lot of sense."

In our conversation, we touched on how the announcement of the studio closure affected the team, where the staff is moving on to, and what this means for the future of both Halo Wars and Age of Empires. Pottinger also shed a little more light on Ensemble's cancelled Halo MMO, while revealing that a reorganized Microsoft scrapped the title after it had already been green-lit. ... Read more

The almost-closed Ensemble Studios is at work on a Halo-themed strategy game, but at one point there was also an MMO set in the Halo universe in the works.

The game was not cancelled recently, as the game was a prototype worked on at the studio from 2006 to 2007 according to the story-breakers at Gamasutra. Ensemble was known to be working on console games and MMOs in 2006 but no details were announced at the time.

A screenshot gallery has emerged of the prototype, showing concept art of locations, characters and monsters that resembled--but were not acknowledged--parts of the Halo universe. In-game mock-ups of the prototype appeared to borrow more than a few elements from Blizzard's monolithic MMO World of Warcraft.

The screenshot gallery, posted as a Flickr gallery by game blog Gone is Gone, is reproduced on Shacknews with concept art as well.