Halo Wars Interview

Still feels a little odd to say “Halo Wars,” sounds like a weird Star Wars ripoff.  Anyway, I’m sure there are tons of RTS and Halo fans out there that are going nuts over the announcement of the game, but for some reason the idea of playing an RTS set in the Halo universe just isn’t all that personally appealing at all. Still, to each his own. For those of you that are excited in Halo Wars,  we’ve got here are some excerpts from a short interview that sheds a little bit more light on the game, have a look:

XCN: Could you give us an introduction to Halo Wars?

Dave Luehmann: Ensemble Studios is developing Halo Wars. TheyÂ’ve made their name as one of the best RTS development teams in the world and their work with Age of Empires bears witness to that. For a while now theyÂ’ve wanted to turn their hand to bringing the RTS experience to the console. They had been working for almost a year on making the RTS and strategy genre work on a console, making it fun for the console gamer given the control method and the lack of a keyboard. Once theyÂ’d figured that out we started thinking about the kind of intellectual property we were going to add to the mix, and Halo seemed the obvious choice.

XCN: Will you be able to play as the Covenant in Halo Wars?

Dave Luehmann: I donÂ’t think weÂ’ve made any promises on thatÂ…

XCN: Is Halo Wars a straight RTS or is it doing something different?

Phil Spencer: I think the term RTS will stick but when you play it I think youÂ’ll see that it is very difficult. Ensemble started by working out how the strategy game could fit into the console environment, not from the point of view of working out how they could make a Halo RTS game. Halo actually started as an RTS on Mac, but this is a completely new endeavour.

XCN: There are so many Halo stories being told – Halo 3, Halo Wars, the Halo movie, novels, graphic novels and so on. Will there be lots of crossover in the narrative of Halo Wars with these other sources?

Phil Spencer: The fiction will remain true to itself. Maintaining the consistency and the quality of the Halo story is all-important. YouÂ’ll see references to other things in the Halo universe because itÂ’s all one world. If something has happened in the past, it will have happened across all the whole Halo universe. We actually have a team dedicated to guarding that continuity so we donÂ’t need to wipe the slate clean every time we add a new chapter to the Halo story. Also, for the people who read all the novels we need to make sure that they donÂ’t have to forget about something they experienced in the Halo universe because we havenÂ’t checked it out properly.

Still feels a little odd to say “Halo Wars,” sounds like a weird Star Wars ripoff.  Anyway, I’m sure there are tons of RTS and Halo fans out there that are going nuts over the announcement of the game, but for some reason the idea of playing an RTS set in the Halo universe just isn’t all that personally appealing at all. Still, to each his own. For those of you that are excited in Halo Wars,  we’ve got here are some excerpts from a short interview that sheds a little bit more light on the game, have a look:

XCN: Could you give us an introduction to Halo Wars?

Dave Luehmann: Ensemble Studios is developing Halo Wars. TheyÂ’ve made their name as one of the best RTS development teams in the world and their work with Age of Empires bears witness to that. For a while now theyÂ’ve wanted to turn their hand to bringing the RTS experience to the console. They had been working for almost a year on making the RTS and strategy genre work on a console, making it fun for the console gamer given the control method and the lack of a keyboard. Once theyÂ’d figured that out we started thinking about the kind of intellectual property we were going to add to the mix, and Halo seemed the obvious choice.

XCN: Will you be able to play as the Covenant in Halo Wars?

Dave Luehmann: I donÂ’t think weÂ’ve made any promises on thatÂ…

XCN: Is Halo Wars a straight RTS or is it doing something different?

Phil Spencer: I think the term RTS will stick but when you play it I think youÂ’ll see that it is very difficult. Ensemble started by working out how the strategy game could fit into the console environment, not from the point of view of working out how they could make a Halo RTS game. Halo actually started as an RTS on Mac, but this is a completely new endeavour.

XCN: There are so many Halo stories being told – Halo 3, Halo Wars, the Halo movie, novels, graphic novels and so on. Will there be lots of crossover in the narrative of Halo Wars with these other sources?

Phil Spencer: The fiction will remain true to itself. Maintaining the consistency and the quality of the Halo story is all-important. YouÂ’ll see references to other things in the Halo universe because itÂ’s all one world. If something has happened in the past, it will have happened across all the whole Halo universe. We actually have a team dedicated to guarding that continuity so we donÂ’t need to wipe the slate clean every time we add a new chapter to the Halo story. Also, for the people who read all the novels we need to make sure that they donÂ’t have to forget about something they experienced in the Halo universe because we havenÂ’t checked it out properly.