“In 2008, Ensemble Studios started planning a gigantic MMO set in the Halo universe. We code-named it Titan. It was to take place tens of thousands of years ago, before the Halos were set off & destroyed all sentient life in the Galaxy,” Petersen said.

“It was all brought to naught when Don Mattrick realized that his stock bonus was based on the income MS had from games in 3 years… So by firing ALL of Ensemble, he didn’t have to pay for our expensive studio for 3 years and he didn’t care about Titan,” he added.

Petersen added that Microsoft had internally modelled $1.1 billion in revenue for Titan and that the team had mapped out quest lines and home worlds, with players aligned to factions inspired by the Forerunners and Covenant (the Flood were planned but not playable).

Ensemble was shuttered in January 2009, with work on Titan believed to have taken place between 2004–2007 before the team pivoted to Halo Wars. 

Petersen’s posts also included a blunt assessment of Mattrick’s tenure: “All he lost was a game studio who never sold less than 3 million copies of everything we made. I don’t believe he did justice to Microsoft stockholders, but hey, Don started as an EA hatchet man, so what would you expect?”

Microsoft has not commented on Petersen’s latest claims. During and after the studio’s closure, other Ensemble veterans previously attributed Titan’s cancellation to internal reorganization and cost/risk concerns around building an MMO.

Blizzard Entertainment’s Overwatch will be heading into open beta when May starts after a routinely successful closed beta. The IP itself has seen an astounding amount of success with merchandise, cosplays and fan interest through the roof before the game has even launched.

However, when Overwatch emerged from the ashes of Blizzard’s cancelled MMO Titan, the development team wasn’t in the best spot. Speaking to GameSpot, designer Jeff Kaplan said that the team failed pretty heavily with Titan.

“You had a really amazing group that was working on Titan. They were really talented individuals, but we failed horrifically in every way. In every way that a project can fail. It was devastating.

“I think there was this inward embarrassment of like, ‘No, we need to prove that we’re worthy of being at Blizzard too. We can make something that makes the company proud.’ We saw it as a last chance. We use the phrase often, ‘You’re only as good as your last game,’ so you don’t get big headed…my most recent game was an utter failure called Titan that got cancelled. [We asked], ‘What can I do next to prove that’s not who I am?’”

Overwatch’s true success will be determined when the game is actually out on May 24th for Xbox One, PS4 and PC but there’s no denying that Kaplan and his team have left behind the failures of Titan for the better.

Now here’s where it get’s interesting: Apparently, according to sources, Titan will only be running on Microsoft hardware and that means only coming to the Xbox. The game is apparently running on a modified Source engine (the same engine Valve uses), and though it looks good, can’t quite compare to EA’s Battlefield 4.

As of now, it seems that Respawn is working on an Xbox 720 version of the game and is looking for a studio to developer the Xbox 360 edition.

These are all rumours, remember, just like the always online nature of the Xbox 720. Microsoft will reveal more on May 21st but we may not see hints of game announcements until E3 2013. Heck, maybe even later. But Respawn’s Titan will definitely be at at E3 2013.

This is apparently the case because according to one source, Microsoft could be as far as six months in game development for the Xbox 720. The console is expected to launch in late 2013 to coincide with the release of Sony’s PS4. However, Microsoft reportedly cancelled several internal projects because it didn’t feel they were shaping up well.

So bringing in Respawn exclusively is fair enough – but it also seems the game will be an always online, massive mulitplayer shooter with factions of 16 players fighting each other. The game is being explicitly designed for multiplayer and a single player element is still unconfirmed.

Respawn is looking to add AI team-mates for online play and help new players. One may even play against bots offline, but as of now, a full campaign is unconfirmed.

More importantly, it will be the first game to come from the maker(s) of Call of Duty since leaving Activision and forming Respawn Entertainment in cooperation with EA.

Now, a new trademark called “Titan” and filled by Respawn Entertainment has come up under the USPTO. Its use is associated with “Video and computer game programs; video games discs; video game software”.

So for all we know, this could indeed be the game that Respawn intends to show off this year when it heads to E3 2013. As of now, there are no other details to go by. But considering the minds behind it, it should be worth the wait.