GamersGlobal.de interview Bruce Shelley “Closing Ensemble was a mistake”
Bruce Shelley has been interviewed by a German online magazine GamersGlobal.de. Most of the interview talks about Settlers 7 and Bruce’s role in the games development. It looks like he’ll be bringing accross Ensemble game design philosophies such as playtesting and making the game easier to play for gamers. However if you listen to the first few minutes of the interview Bruce talks about the closure of Ensemble Studios where he believes it was a mistake and says that the studio was closed due to Microsoft thinking it wasnt a strategic studio anymore. He goes onto say that Ensemble were making different games outside of the genre but those games kept being cancelled by Microsoft. Clearly Microsoft did not give the studio a chance to explore titles outside of the RTS genre, a big shame on Microsoft.
Check out the video below:
Bruce Shelley working with Ubisoft on “Settlers 7”
Its been just over a year when Ensemble Studios closed its doors (29th Jan 2009) and we have seen lots of news where the developers have set up new companies such as Robot, Bonfire, NewToy, Fuzzycube and Windstorm and we have seen some of the developers join posts in other prestigious companies such as Paul Jaquays now working at CCP North America. However news has been scarce about iconic Ensemble developer and co-founder Bruce Shelley, until now.
Today it was widely revealed that Bruce Shelley has joined Ubisoft’s Blue Byte studio where he will be working as consultant on the RTS game “Settlers 7”. It looks like nothing can keep Bruce away from RTS video game development! You can find out more about the game and see Bruce in action as he describes the economy structure of Settlers 7 in the YouTube video below.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXIs5Z1Kk5c
Also check out the high res download of the video over at BigDownload.com
Settlers 7 open beta now open
More good news is that the Settlers 7 game that Bruce is working on is now accepting beta signups so that you can get a first look at the game. More details about that available here: http://www.fileplanet.com/promotions/settlers-7. Note also that an ubi.com account is needed for registration so be sure to get that setup first.
Remember-EnsembleStudios.com will be following developments of this game closely and will update with any more Bruce Shelley blogs or vidlogs. Keep an eye out!
