With Halo Wars already Gold, Ensemble Studios, the 12 year old studio owned by Microsoft and developers of the Age of Empires franchise, finally closed it doors. Bruce Shelley, employee #4 who has been with the company since the beginning, writes in Ensemble’s blog about the studio’s final day.

“We are working our way through the final week with mixed emotions,” Bruce writes, “Boxes are piled in the hallways for trash; people are giving away games and other stuff they don’t want anymore; computers are being wiped; and our corporate IDs are being turned in.” He goes on to blog that while the company had fun working together and were a family, “many of us may not cross paths again.”

“There are at least two new studios being formed by ES employees and I expect both to do very well,” says Bruce, “There were a lot of outstanding game developers here and it will be interesting to see how and what they do, both individually and as new groups, in the years ahead.”

A Halo Wars demo was announced. It will be released February 12th.