Years ago, plans were underway to create a massive online game called ‘Titan’ within the Halo universe. This project was being developed by Ensemble Studios, but the studio was unfortunately closed down in 2009. Sandy Petersen, a long-time employee of Ensemble, publicly claimed that Don Mattrick, who was then in charge of Xbox, cancelled the game to ensure he received a larger bonus.
This is a critical examination of why a promising game was ultimately cancelled. It reveals the behind-the-scenes story of a project that looked great on the surface but never came to fruition.
Titan Was a Prequel MMO in the Halo Universe
Sandy Petersen, a former level designer on games like Doom and Quake who later worked at Ensemble Studios, recently shared on social media the reason why the Halo MMO called ‘Titan’ was ultimately cancelled.
Back in 2008, the team at Ensemble Studios began developing a large-scale online multiplayer game set within the Halo universe. This project, internally known as Titan, would have been set tens of thousands of years before the events of the Halo games – before the Halos were activated and destroyed all intelligent life in the galaxy.
Everything fell apart when Don Mattrick discovered his bonus depended on Microsoft’s game revenue over the next three years.
Okay, so we figured it would take about three and a half years to really finish Titan, do it the way we wanted. But that timeline didn’t fit with what Don Mattrick was demanding – he had a firm deadline, and we were way past it.
By letting go of the entire Ensemble team, he avoided paying for the costly studio rental for three years and showed he wasn’t concerned about Titan.
Petersen shared that the planned Halo massively multiplayer online game would have let players experience the universe as either Forerunners or Covenant characters. The Flood were also intended to be a major part of the game, though players wouldn’t have been able to play as them.
The storylines were planned, the planets were created, and Microsoft predicted the game would have earned over $1.1 billion.
Back in 2008, the team at Ensemble Studios began developing a large-scale online multiplayer game set within the Halo universe. We called it ‘Titan.’ The game would have been set tens of thousands of years before the events of the main Halo games, before the Halos were activated and destroyed all intelligent life in the galaxy. I was responsible for creating the game’s overall setting and history.
— Sandy Petersen 🪔 (@SandyofCthulhu) October 28, 2025
Petersen continued to criticize Mattrick, ultimately suggesting this behavior was simply typical for someone in that executive position.
He essentially lost a very successful game studio – everything we created consistently sold over 3 million copies. I don’t think he acted in the best interests of Microsoft’s investors, but considering he previously worked as a ruthless executive at EA, that’s not entirely surprising.
As a huge Halo fan, I was so excited when I heard about ‘Titan’ – that canceled RTS game! Apparently, the team at Ensemble Studios, led by Petersen, was really making something special, exploring a really ancient part of the Halo universe. It’s just a shame it got canceled, especially when it sounded like it was close to being finished. I remember reading that it could have done some really cool things with the Halo story, even introducing time travel! It’s still disappointing to think about what could have been, and it was apparently Don Mattrick who made the call to shut it down.
Don Mattrick led the Xbox division at Microsoft, shaping its overall strategy, until he left in 2013 to become the CEO of Zynga.
The Halo game called Titan is different from Blizzard’s canceled project, also named Titan – a massive multiplayer online game that was scrapped after the company spent $80 million on it.
Wouldn’t it have been amazing to see the Halo MMO that Ensemble Studios was developing? Share your thoughts on the project over on the TopMob Discord server.
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2025-11-02 10:49