While Ensemble Studios employees were busy stowing their gear and shutting down operations, Gamasutra thought it’d be worth it to go ask a few more questions about the rumored Halo MMO.

What they found was that the project has a long, long history. In Fact, it began before Halo, as a sci-fi project by the name of Titan, an MMO inspired by Ultima Online. Then, when Ensemble were brought into the Microsoft regime, the Halo license “was incorporated in the game”, and the project’s name was changed to Orion.
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In the latest video documentary of the real-time strategy game Halo Wars by Ensemble Studios, we are given a look at the individual units appearing in the game, from hordes of Spartans to swarms of Locusts.

Seeing the units in Halo Wars up close and personal like this, makes me more than a little excited about the upcoming game, especially at the prospect of finally getting to see whole squads of Spartans in action. The best part of the video though is the comparison that campaign lead Jerome Jones makes regarding controlling a squad of Spartans versus controlling the ultimate Spartan, Master Chief.

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Well ladies and gentlemen, here it is. The first Halo game without Bungie! Ensemble Studios last game, their crack at a real-time strategy game on a console!

It’s well over 1GB worth of downloady goodness, and while not everyone can get it just yet (namely, Microsoft saying it was there, and only some people being able to grab it), by the time you read this it should hopefully be available for all.