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Lionhead Studios and Press Play closed. Fable legends cancelled.

K

kinoki

Illness is the doctor to whom we pay most heed; to kindness, to knowledge, we make promise only; pain we obey.
Yikes. That's harsh. I thought Lionhead was going to survive everything being Microsoft's RPG-developer. Press Play being closed is so odd. Denmark is an up and coming market and Microsoft should be glad to have an established company in the area. But this is the normal way of doing business, I guess. Still sad. :(
 
T

TharpDaddy

Member
Horp said:
MS: "hey lionhead can we make FL into a microtransactiondriven moba?"
LH: "not really"
MS: "RIP"
Click to expand...

I'm not sure MS would try to catch the moba cash train, we've seen Dawngate and Infinite Crisis both shut down before leaving beta and Motiga (Gigantic developer) just laid off a bunch of people.
 
SEGAvangelist

SEGAvangelist

Member
I'm shook. Fable Legends was coming along so nicely over the last few months. So stupid they are just scrapping all that development. It's nearly done.
 
M

M.D

Member
XbMCgjR.jpg


Did this come as a surprise to the team? :/
 
O

Osahi

Member
Woah, that's a bombshell. Didn't see the forclosure of Lionhead coming at all! I always regarded them as one of their biggest triple A-devs, like Rare catering the more casual gamers and a good counterweight to the (by lack of a better term) 'dudebro'-offerings of their other big studios.

I was no fan of Fable, but it is still a loss as Lionhead made pretty distinctive and unique games in my opinion. I was actually looking forward to checking Fable Legends out on Xbox One, as these kind of titles interest me more then Halo and Gears of War.

Same goes for Press Play. Didn't like the Max-game, but it is a shame that a studio developping these kind of experiences has to shut down.
 
R

Rembrandt

Banned
it's interesting to note that MS has killed all (most?) of their first party F2P games. Project Spark, Fable Legends and Project Knoxville.
 
O

Orakio Rob

Member
Rellik said:
Fable did get worse with every game, but I still enjoyed the series.I was hoping for a true Fable 4. I guess we won't be getting that now :(
Click to expand...

Oh, I just remembered: I once got Fable 3 for free in the Games with Gold promo. I played it for an hour or two and was very disappointed :(
 
O

oti

Banned
Fable 2 is one of my favourite games of all time. This hurts. And I don't know what to make out of Microsoft anymore.
 
M

Momentary

Banned
Fable Legends was pretty damn rough after all this time in development. I feel sorry for beta testers who actually spent money on their micro transactions.

I hope everyone affected by this are helped with locating new job positions elsewhere.
 
M

mclem

Member
outunderthestars said:
Another sign that MS is moving away from the traditional console business?
Click to expand...

Actually, no, I don't think this suggests that. FL was meant to be a Win10/XBox crossover title IIRC, which if anything would be a transitional tool for the changeover that's being muttered about.
 
T

TM94

Member
Man fuck Microsoft, practically sent Lionhead out to die by getting them to work on Legends instead of a proper Fable IV which everyone wanted to see.

Just awful management.
 
A

Acosta

Member
I don't understand this, they made these huge effort with Legends, the game was almost finished but they decide to can it? I'm sure it was more interesting to play than The Journey even if it not the game they dreamed for. Seems such a waste from my perspective...

BTW, big kudos to whoever decided to change the direction with Fable with those last projects.

Microsoft Games is such a mess these days, wow.
 
D

Dreams-Visions

Member
Boo Boo'n said:
Battletech IP is doing fine, Kameo isn't a 'franchise' and neither is Conker and Brute Force

lol even bringing up Brute Force anyway
Click to expand...

That's the disappointing part. With the exception of Brute Force which was tongue in cheek, all of those should have been franchises. The fact that they never become franchises was exactly the point. I'm surprised you missed it.
 
W

WooHooAlex

Member
LegalEagleMike said:
This is legitimately upsetting news. The Fable franchise should have been so much more than what it became.
Click to expand...

I agree, definitely a series that never reached its full potential.
Very sad to hear this, hope everyone who lost their job lands on their feet quickly.
Also hope Microsoft will give Fable another try in the near future.
 
N

No_Style

Member
This studio made some fantastic games. I'm surprised by the closure because it must have been a hot mess (financially and otherwise) if they had to go down this route. I hope we get more details on how it all went down.
 
D

DopeyFish

Not bitter, just unsweetened
TM94 said:
Man fuck Microsoft, practically sent Lionhead out to die by getting them to work on Legends instead of a proper Fable IV which everyone wanted to see.

Just awful management.
Click to expand...

i didn't want another fable

i wanted lionhead to move on to something new
 
P

Pachimari

Member
And we don't even have that many development house in Denmark to begin with. Damn. I feel sorry for all those affected, and I really hope IO Interactive opens their doors, for those who want to join them from Press Play.

And Lionhead were pretty big. Sad to see them go, even if Fable Legends didn't look that enticing, it's sure a sudden closure.

Good luck to everybody.
 
E

Effect

Member
Wow that's sudden.

It looked like Legends was coming along. Still not something I wanted but looked like a thing. I think I had recently gotten an email as well about it.

I do wonder if things would have been different had they simply had made Fable 4 from the start. With the possibility of it already having been released and sold and making some money.
 
Bitch Pudding

Bitch Pudding

Member
First of all, good luck to all employees finding new challenges.

Fable was always one of the big ones in MS' exclusive portfolio; that thei're cutting down this business says a lot, given other recent developments.
 
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