Cancelled MMOs I want back

Cancelled MMOs I want back By Vasily Tedeev V is happy that he took up writing again, something he had dreamed of doing ever since he was nine years old. Being a nonconforming combination of a social party animal and a gamer, he realized that his life amounted not to just games and women, but that he had to pursue his passions and self-development in other areas as well.

The current atmosphere in the MMO industry is one of fierce competitiveness. Developers have slowly opened up to experiments with pricing models, new settings and gameplay mechanics just to make their game stand out from the slew of new entries on the market as well as established franchises in the genre. In the midst of all the marketing blitz and new announcements, it is easy to forget titles that never made it to release. But, for the people who followed them with enthusiasm, the cancellation of these games felt like a real fiasco.

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Today we take a look at some of the MMOs that were canned at various stages of development and were never given the opportunity to prove themselves.

Halo Online

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At first, there were only rumours circulating that Ensemble studios were making an MMO based on the Halo universe. Then several art assets have surfaced on the net and the eager rumour machine shifted gears. The project codenamed ‘Titan' had a projected $90 million budget and the support of an experienced development team. As one former Ensemble employee noted, the game was geared to be a real competitor to World of Warcraft. So what caused Microsoft to shut down a game that was based on one of the most popular IPs in gaming? Apparently, they looked at the success of Nintendo Wii and the money brought in by the casual market and decided that appealing to this audience was a key priority for the company's gaming direction. How was that related to the Halo franchise? Beats me.

There are so many possibilities and visions of what a Halo MMO could have been but all is not lost. Microsoft stated that they have several teams working on Halo related projects at any given time so there is still a chance the title will be resurrected in one form or another. One can only hope.

Ultima Online 2

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The original Ultima reaped success beyond anything that the creators could have imagined. In fact, it was so profitable that the publisher EA decided there should be a sequel MMO released not long after the first one launched. This time, there would be full 3d support and the title was meant to compete with the latest MMOs released at the time. Later on, EA went backwards on their decision, citing that the sequel would create unnecessary competition for subscribers with the original Ultima Online and dropped all support for the title. Soon after the announcement, 200 employees were laid off and a good portion of them were working on the MMO.

The original game is thought of as a title that almost single-handedly popularized the MMORPG genre and showed to publishers that MMO games were not only viable but also made a lot of money. It would be interesting to see how the industry would have shaped up if the sequel was ever allowed to hit the market. The original creator and design visionary, Richard Garriot, has recently mentioned an interest in moving to social games and media so the chances of the franchise being truly reborn are slim.