Ensemble Studios used to be at the top of the world, back when they were making Age of Empires games- they were the standard bearers of the real time strategy genre, and each of their new releases induced a paradigm shift for strategy games.
Then Microsoft went ahead and shuttered Ensemble, and some of those fine folks went on to make Robot Entertainment, a studio that created Orcs Must Die. While Orcs Must Die is not the milestone game that Age of Empires was, it is, nonetheless, an extremely fun one. It is also, interestingly enough, a PS4 console exclusive.
When we got the chance to sit down with Chris Rippy, VP of Production at Robot Entertainment, we decided to ask him why this is the case. Was an Xbox One version ever even considered?
“No,” Rippy said, “It’s just not on our radar right now. We have a really great relationship with Sony. They were really excited to have the title on there. That’s kind of the size of our studio- we can focus on only a couple things at once, and this is just a great world for us to live in.”
Which is fair, I suppose. This kind of thing happens all the time in the industry, especially with smaller developers. Plus, hey, I’d be a bit wary of working with Microsoft again too, if I were Robot.
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