Given the opportunity to do anything, what would you choose? When Ensemble Studios' management team asked itself this question, in late 2004, there was a consensus: not this. The studio had spent the better part of a decade iterating its brand of real-time strategy, following its 1997 debut Age Of Empires with two direct sequels, a number of expansions, and a spinoff in Age Of Mythology that not only pivoted this winning formula into fantasy but also its first fully 3D engine. Since Ensemble's acquisition in 2001, this path had been followed under the firm encouragement of Microsoft. Now, as the team began to look beyond Age Of Empires 3, it was growing restless. The RTS had been all Ensemble had ever known, and it wanted to spread its wings.
Some in the studio's leadership were keen to try their hand at an MMORPG, spurred by the wildly popular beta of World Of Warcraft; others suggested an action RPG in the vein of Diablo. Both were backed enthusiastically, but lead programmer Angelo Laudon floated a more conservative option, one that would help keep the suits upstairs happy: stick to the RTS format on which the studio had built its name, while expanding beyond the PC audience.
