Nearly 20 years ago, the makers of Age of Empires tried to make a Halo MMO, and then the studio closed: 'I still feel like no-one has really done the action MMO I see in my mind'

Rob Fermier has enjoyed a fascinating career, with his name attached to an impressive list of games, including Thief, System Shock and Age of Mythology. He co-founded C Prompt Games in 2018, the studio responsible for digital board game Heretic Operative and the Paradox-published 4X, Millennia. But between those periods he worked on one of the few actually good console real-time strategy games.

Halo Wars was developed by Ensemble, the studio behind Age of Empires. But it wasn't the only Halo game Ensemble was involved in.