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[Shiggy]

Any background information? Isn't Press Play rather small? Does Microsoft want to reduce investments in gaming?

 

[Stone Ocean]

What the random shit?

 

[RedSparrows]

Rare.

That's not the point of the image...

 

[StudioTan]

Damn, WTF. That's crazy, I can't believe they're closing Lionhead.

I thought Fable Legends was fun too

I hope everyone at Lionhead and Press Play can land on their feet as soon as possible.

Terrible news.

 

[keltickennedy]

Didnt see that coming

I saw that coming. The game has been in beta for almost two years.

Sucks for all the people who lost their jobs. I wish they would of kept on working on the standard Fable series. It was all downhill after that Kinect game.

 

[User 479360]

Wow. Sad news. I didn't expect Lionhead to be closed.

Here's hoping we'll still get another TRADITIONAL Fable game.

I played Fable Legends and, though I didn't like the idea of it not being a traditional game, it was a bit better than expected. Still nothing great, though.

 

[VincentMatts]

This sucks. I've always thought Legends was a huge misstep for Fable as a name but I was really interested to see what they could do with a 'normal' Fable without Molyneux which I was hoping would come down the line.

Never get to find out now

I doubt its just this game. You dont close a studio over ONE project thats still in WIP. MS need to stop buying studios. It always ends badly for them. Surprised Rare is still around.

 

[Red Hood]

What the fuck, that's so out of the blue.

 

[R3TRODYCE]

I liked Lionhead and Fable so that's sad news but the Legends beta was pure trash so I understand that tbh.

 

[witness]

Wow that's crazy. All the best to those without a job.

 

[Smash88]

Bullfrog (1987-2001)

Lionhead (1997-2016)

??? (2017-20XX)

There goes one of the last remaining childhood devs. sigh

 

[privitsan02]

That's unfortunate but under any of the other publishers, they wouldn't have survived this long from my point of view. Fable just got worse with each release and they've lost a lot of goodwill assets from customers due to Peter Molyneux. For some reason, I thought Legends had already been released.

Alas, hope those affected find opportunities elsewhere. Being laid off absolutely sucks.

Best wishes.

 

[Strike]

Damn. Good luck to everyone who worked at those studios.

 

[ironcreed]

Honestly, unless they announce they're buying/forming new studios in the immediate future (and they closed what they considered to be underperforming studios in the mean time to reallocate those resources)...

This just doesn't make any sense to me. Why on earth?

With it being so sudden, it makes me worry about what is really going on inside Xbox. I mean, they were sitting on pretty much a finished game that was in beta and the devs were interacting and tweeting only a couple of days ago. It's like someone just walked in on a normal day and dropped the axe.

 

[Doug Heffernan]

If they cancelled Legends a year or two ago I wouldn't be surprised

At this point it seemed so far along I'm shocked they're just throwing all that development time and money down the drain

It was destined to fail.
I'm sure they had enough data from the unpopular beta to realize that this was not gonna work.
The game was a product of the Mattrick era and had to go.

 

[DJSebolski]

What a shitty way to be let go. Just another normal day and then... were closed. What the fuck?

Welcome to corporate world.

 

[derFeef]

What?? Legends was promising. Press Play too? FUCKERS!

 

[Majine]

Fable Legends was pretty prominent whenever Microsoft talked about Xbox outside strictly gaming occasions, like that Windows 10 event where they showed off crossplay functionality.

This is shocking.

 

[civilstrife]

Who ever made the decision that the Fable Franchise next step is a F2P MOBA game should get fired not the people at Lionhead.

Uh... Fable Legends was not a MOBA in any way.

 

[Aesnath]

I just don't get how MS handles game developers. I liked Fable. I mean they take a game series about X and then try to Y it all up and wonder why there isn't a lot of excitement? Did Fable III really sell so poorly that they needed to focus on a spinoff? I just know that my personal level of excitement would have been higher if Fable IV was what they were working on.

Either way, good luck to everyone impacted by these announcements. I hope everyone lands on their feet.

 

[Dandy Lyin]

I know a lot of people shit on LH over the years(mainly because of Petey), but I enjoyed the time I spent with the 3 core Fable games, despite their flaws and how short they fell of initial "promises."

It's a shame Legends was cancelled considering how far along it seemed to be. All the best to those affected

 

[Dreams-Visions]

I don't think Rare's brand is especially valuable these days, and I'm actually surprised that after their big downsizing a few years back, Rare hasn't quietly been axed. Similarly, I'm surprised Microsoft outright killed Lionhead (and the almost-finished game they've been working on for years), rather than shrinking and relocating them.

Pause and think about the reaction the gaming world and gaming press would have to the shuttering of Rare. You don't want that kind of PR, ever.

 

[Rembrandt]

Yea I know it is a minority opinion I just wanted to voice my thoughts on it. It is sad to see the team lose their jobs, but hopefully they all find a new place in the industry.

I'm sure this won't be the end of the fable franchise though, It will probably get shoveled to another studio like the Halo and Gears IPs.

if anything, we might see a rebranding and Fable under a new dev team composed of lots of Lionhead people. Way to separate the game from the dev's label. I had amazing times with the Fable series and I even enjoyed the beta. I loved Max and I thought Project Knoxville had so much potential. Weird news all around.

 

[VeeP]

It's sad. Their past games weren't amazing, but they showed potential. I would've loved a rebooted, proper Fable RPG, similar to Witcher in level design. Don't be it open world but with open world segments all connected. It would've been great.

Besides that, focus on that great fable art style. Cartoony, but charming.

Such a shame.

 

[GuitarAtomik]

Who ever made the decision that the Fable Franchise next step is a F2P MOBA game should get fired not the people at Lionhead.

The game wasn't a MOBA at all.

 

[jem0208]

Damn, that sucks...

 

[Anth0ny]

Woah

 

[LukasTaves]

Wtf?

Damn, it seems a totally random decision, it must been so bad for the employees.

 

[Kill3r7]

I saw that coming. The game has been in beta for almost two years.

Sucks for all the people who lost their jobs. I wish they would of kept on working on the stable Fable series. It was all downhill after that Kinect game.

Okay I can understand cancelling a troubled project but shutting down a studio seems pretty drastic. Especially since it costs a decent amount of money to either buy or set one up.

 

[ElBoxyBrown]

They probably haven't. While fans are disappointed with Rares output they helped a lot with the Kinect and were able to move on when MS dropped it

Oh that's true. But in all honesty if they had failed to make profitable Kinect games you know it would have been downhill for them.

 

[ThatOneGrunt]

This all because I deleted Fable Legends Beta from my hdd the other day isn't it?

 

[DeathoftheEndless]

Who ever made the decision that the Fable Franchise next step is a F2P MOBA game should get fired not the people at Lionhead.

Maybe it was the people at Lionhead.

 

[cakely]

Fable Legends didn't look great, but I did not see this coming.

I'm looking forward to seeing a detailed Lionhead postmortem.

 

[Megatron]

I'm more bummed about press play. Curse of Brotherhood was great. Lion head hasn't made a good game since Fable 2, which was what, 8 years ago? How long was Microsoft supposed to give them?

 

[Obliterator]

Its a shame but not too surprising. Lionheads output for quite a while has been very very poor. Such a bummer too as Fable 2 was a brilliant game

 

[DopeyFish]

Okay I can understand cancelling a troubled project but shutting down a studio seems pretty drastic. Especially since it costs a decent amount of money to either buy or set one up.

it's actually easier to set up a new studio then fix a broken one lol

 

[Navy Bean]

Wow. Sad news. I didn't expect Lionhead to be closed.

Here's hoping we'll still get another TRADITIONAL Fable game.

I played Fable Legends and, though I didn't like the idea of it not being a traditional game, it was a bit better than expected. Still nothing great, though.

I'm pretty sure a traditional Fable re-boot would have been well received. Heck, it could have included Legends style gameplay as the MP component.

 

[Alx]

Woah that was unexpected. Three European studios at once ?
I hadn't even time to play the Fable Legends beta more than a few minutes.

 

[KORNdoggy]

I doubt Fable is as big of a franchise as Gears or Halo to continue on after Lionhead's closure. Could be wrong of course.

i dunno. it was part of the annual rotation last gen. gears. halo. forza and fable. plus it ticked their "RPG" box, even if it was an RPG-lite. i think there's a good chance we'll still see a fable game. i just hope it's given a bit more respect then their recent VR conker title. lol. surely it has a bigger following then the phantom dust sequel/reboot they were planning? that franchise was niche as hell.

 

[Boke1879]

Microsoft has probably thought long and hard about shutting down Rare but they won't survive the PR nightmare of shutting down one of gaming's (used to be) most beloved studios.

Rare already seems like it's on the back burner. You see what MS is doing with Conker. Like they said. If Sea of Thieves isn't up to par they might just get rid of them as well.

 

[Muskieratboi]

YOU WOT?!

FUCKING

LIONHEAD

WHAT


OH FUCK YOU MS, JUST WHEN YOU HAD A GOOD RUN!!

 

[Ilive1up]

B&W and Fable 2 are great games. RIP.

 

[Salty Hippo]

Two of their few studios that don't produce shooters or racing games. Well done, Microsoft. As if there already wasn't a mindboggling shortage of their internal studios. Rare is probably next if SOT isn't a huge a success.

Not gonna beat the dead horse by trash talking "Saviour Phil" because this is not the time, but goddamn it. Hope everyone lands on their feet, there were some talented ass people on both of those studios.

 

[GusZamboni]

feels bad for them ... i never played the beta, but the game looks like finished already ... what pity

 

[Demoncarnotaur]

Ah, fuck.

Fable Legends didn't look great, but I'm gonna miss Lionhead. I really feel for those out of work. Press Play is a loss as well.

 

[Simply Sami]

I saw that coming. The game has been in beta for almost two years.

Sucks for all the people who lost their jobs. I wish they would of kept on working on the standard Fable series. It was all downhill after that Kinect game.

Nah, Fable 3 was the start.

 

[Breads]

That's awful. Really it is. I do question some of the responses though. I get if it's a kneejerk reaction but to say this but was it really that much of a surprise? It didn't exactly come out of nowhere.

 

[Balmung421]

Can peeps share what the game was like despite the nda? I thought it was coming out any month now. Hope those people find new jobs quickly!

 

[oti]

Oh come on.

Crackdown?
Scalebound?
Quantum Break?
Killer Instinct?
Recore?
Sea of Thieves?
State of Decay?

All MS IPs.

It's a damn shame that the devs at Lionhead are most likely losing their jobs and that the Fable franchise will be put on ice, but let's not get crazy.

Fair enough. There are too many question marks surrounding some of those games for me though and not on the same "level" as Fable. To me (totally subjective) Fable was part of Microsoft's identity. Now that it's dead the brand Xbox has lost a lot of its appeal for me.

 

[Y2Kev]

How the hell did this happen? Fable 2 and 3 were huge...