Fable Legends is no more. Microsoft has announced that it has canned production of the long awaited game and is in talks to shut down Lionhead Studios in the UK. The studio founded by Peter Molyneux isn’t the only one facing bad news as Redmond also announced that it will be shutting down Press Play Studios in Denmark as well.
Lionhead Studios made a name for itself with the Populous series, and the extremely ambitious Black & White. More recently, the developers won gamers over with the Fable series for the Xbox. Its latest effort in Fable Legends has apparently been facing some difficulty, as the title has been in production hell for the last four years.
Press Play Studios is also getting the axe after working on titles like Max: The Curse of the Brotherhood and Kalimba. Not entirely triple-A titles, but it is still disheartening to see another game studio disappear.
Microsoft’s announcement has not entirely made it clear what will happen to the employees of the defunct studios. It may appear that these people will be shuffled around to the other Microsoft own game studios like Remedy or Rare. If this is the case, it may not entirely be a bad thing if Mojang got more people to work on Minecraft; considering that it is now Microsoft’s most popular game and only receives updates every couple of years.
[Source: Xbox]
I was in the closed beta, it is ambitious and beautiful but something always felt off with the game. The concept in itself is awesome but the gameplay is bricky and awkward to say the least. Hope they manage to revive the or change the game mechanic to make it more fluid.