Ensemble Studios founder: Age of Empires III was a “huge mistake”

There is no denying that the third instalment of the legendary Age of Empires series failed to strike a perfect chord with fans. While it was a great RTS title on its own, it couldn’t fill up the mighty shoes of the genre defining Age of Empires II. And even the developer seems to agree, stating that the project was a “Huge Mistake”.

In an interview with Kotaku, Bruce Shelley, founder of Ensemble Studios, explained that they were too keen on reinventing the series and ruined the game in the process.

“With Age of Empires 3 we tried all of these new ideas,” he said. “I think it was a huge mistake.”

“We wanted to create something that was 30 percent the same, 30 percent borrowed and 30 percent innovative. I think we tried to do too much.”

Shelley also added that late in the development cycle, Ensemble tried to backtrack in order to restore the series signature gameplay, but it was too little too late and the product had to be rushed out.

“It was like being a child changing all of the dials on a television and then trying to get that picture back, it just wasn’t an Age game anymore.”

We couldn’t have agreed more.

Ensemble Studios was dissolved in 2009 with Halo Wars as their swan song. Although the studio didn’t exactly go out with a bang, Age of Empires II will always go down in the books as one of the greatest accomplishments in the genre.

The future isn’t all that dim for the series though, as Microsoft is working on a free to play iteration titled Age of Empires Online, which is slated for a 2011 release.