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Lionhead Studios and Press Play closed. Fable legends cancelled.
- Thread starter chadskin
- Start date
Equanimity
Member
Damn! I wish everyone affected the best of luck.
AndyMoogle
Member
I can't imagine Rare being in a great position either. If Sea of Thieves is a bomb they might be axed.
Hibiki Kurosawa
Member
Wwwwwwwwwhat the fuck...
Poodlestrike
Banned
Mass_Pincup
Banned
Regretting my X1 purchase more and more now, Lionhead was such a great studio before MS swooped in, Fable and The Movies are some of my favorite games.
thekiddfran
Member
Oh they milk all their franchises but now fable is out of the milking loop so it is only Halo+Forza left.
I suppose you can add gears into the current loop too. Still 3 titles on a continuous milky loop sucks
a XBLA title, the on-rails kinect game, then this. these came after Fable III which people disliked.
Lots of people acting like they were putting out tons of amazing games from Fable 1 to now.
I was just listening to The Movies soundtrack yesterday. Oh man.
How could they do this with Fable Legends being so close to finished? That is so weird. I don't know what to make of this.
To be fair it looked like crap. People getting let go is always sad, though.
CecilRousso
Member
That's one mismanaged studio. Really not something that paints MS in a good way, that they have handled such a large studio, with so many employees, so irresponsible/careless.
PrintedCrayon
Banned
A UK studio with such lineage just closed like that... Almost brings a tear to the eye.
I'm terribly sad for the employees of all affected companies. Hope everyone lands on their feet.
I'm terribly sad for the employees of all affected companies. Hope everyone lands on their feet.
VincentMatts
Member
I dont understand, why not release it anyway as FTP at this point. I played it, it didnt seem this bad. I kinda liked it.
Peter Molyneux left Lionhead Studios in 2012 to make his own studio, 22Cans. They made that game Godus.
While Fable 1-3 were each flawed in their own way, I really enjoyed playing each of them and appreciated the unique charm and ideas they brought to the RPG formula. They might not have hit the mark 100% of the time, but I admire them for taking the shot in the first place where others might have preferred to play it safe.
This sucks.
This sucks.
Cornbread78
Member
Well dam, this is terrible...... Hopefully, the employees can pick up work.
Fable must have been a complete mess for them to drop it at this point.
Fable must have been a complete mess for them to drop it at this point.
DeepEnigma
Gold Member
EAToo
Good thing this thread is about LionHead, a MSFT property, er was, eh?
"Here's your termination papers. We wish you well in your future endeavours. You have fifteen minutes to clean out your desk before security escorts you out of the office."
I don't mean to laugh, but oh shit, lol.
So Microsoft, the company with a metric fuck ton of money, stops development of a game that's nearly finished and shit cans the studio with it. What a way to treat people who have put thousands of hours into a project. What are the bets some bean counter looked at the books and went "Yeah close them down. They are losing money and I have no idea what they do." What a moronic move by MS.
ffuck - I was 31
was it still magical though? lionhead their power.
I believe it's 60 days.
infinit777
Member
Fable 3 was great though
and Fable: The Journey was an alright game and one of the best kinect games.SensibleSucker
Member
I played the beta and it looked really good. Sure, there were some small bugs but it was a beta after all. It had the best lighting I;d seen on any Xbone game and it played pretty well. I would have thought the game was 99% finished.
This is bizarre.
This is bizarre.
Poodlestrike
Banned
It really wasn't though, that's what's so baffling.
This also leaves kind of a big hole in MS' studio lineup, especially since those 4 new ones turned out to be for their AR initiative, and that's not getting a consumer model any time soon :/
GlamFM
Banned
Marketing is like half of the entire budget.
Building a PC.
Don't see how there could be fatigue. There were only three games in the series. One on the Xbox and two on the 360 with some decent time in between. That's actually good spacing. Not announcing Fable 4 and instead announcing Fable Legends was very likely a big mistake on top of any issues they might have had making the game work and having worked on it so long.
Fable 3 released in 2010. Fable Legends was announced in 2013 and it is now 2016. That's a lot of time there. The only things between F3 and Legends was that kinect spin off game and the remake or just HD remaster of the first. Such a waste and a long time to go before making a significant game. So on that front it isn't a surprise they'd be closed at some point. The sudden nature of it is still surprising.
You don't know what your talking about.
One of my favorite games.. so good.
EA owns the IP and now Lionhead is dead, so sad.
Triggerhappytel
Member
Lionhead being closed? Jesus fuck Microsoft, I know they haven't made a big seller in a while, but I don't think anyone was expecting they'd just be closed down rather than working through the issues.
Dreams-Visions
Member
Rare might be immune due to sheer brand name alone. I think closing Rare would be such an affirmation of failure for Microsoft's foray into console gaming that they'd never do it out of pride. Keeping the studio funded and doing little or selling their stake to Nintendo or Sony would be a better move than shuttering the doors of a truly legendary studio and brand.
to be fair (briefly), we have no idea about any of the internal issues they may have had, what timelines or productivity was being evaluated at or what the expectations were for that studio. But it feels like it's been years since they put out a game that sold well.
MAX PAYMENT
Member
Wow. This sucks.
Fable 3 was great though
minority opinion. they've been on the backburner for a little over half a decade. people are really overreacting, though it's terrible news regardless, but people are reaching across the grand canyon in some of these conclusions.
Cheesy Steve
Neo Member
This seems very odd. Even if Fable Legends was getting a poor reception, I don't see that as a reason to close the entire studio.
