Lionhead is No more

[Hellravager]

http://kotaku.com/microsoft-official...ead-1773808823

In early March, Microsoft announced plans to cancel Fable Legends and put forth a “proposed closure” of the iconic studio Lionhead. Today, it’s official: Lionhead is no more.

“We can confirm that after much consideration over the six week consultation period with Lionhead employees, we have reached the decision to close Lionhead Studios,” Microsoft told our friends at Kotaku UK this morning. “We have nothing but heart-felt thanks for the team at Lionhead for their significant contributions to Xbox and the games industry.”

Said “consultation period” was just a formality: British law requires companies to go through a very specific process before they officially shut down. Lionhead employees had been prepared for the end. Even the website is no more.

Lionhead, best known as the studio behind Fable and Black & White, was founded in 1996 by former Bullfrog employees including Peter Molyneux. Molyneux left the company in 2012.

[dope_danny]

Better than seeing Fable turned into a cash shop moba for the Xbone i suppose. Hopefully they can find jobs under a less sinking ship mentality leadership.

[Baconeggcheese]

Man that has to hurt, hadn't heard of fable legends until just now but either they made a really solid demo or the game was pretty close to done. All that work to never see your game shipped is cringey.

[smackyslap]

Like I said before I hope the fable IP gets handed off to a better studio that make more stuff like fable one and a lot less like 3.

[DeadmanWalking]

Good, Only took playing Fable 2 for 40+ hours and getting stuck in an arena with a 'bugged' giant beetle that was invulnerable to the point I couldn't defeat it, it couldn't defeat me due to vampire weapon and no ability to leave the arena unless you win. They could of fixed it with an update on xbox live but chose not to do so to save money. At that point I would never buy another Lionshead game again.

[Tommy T]

Good, Only took playing Fable 2 for 40+ hours and getting stuck in an arena with a 'bugged' giant beetle that was invulnerable to the point I couldn't defeat it, it couldn't defeat me due to vampire weapon and no ability to leave the arena unless you win. They could of fixed it with an update on xbox live but chose not to do so to save money. At that point I would never buy another Lionshead game again.

Good?
They produced one of the best ARPGS of a generation.

Fable kicked it all off for me, in terms of RPG games.

[Airlick]

Good?
They produced one of the best ARPGS of a generation.

Fable kicked it all off for me, in terms of RPG games.

What do you mean by "generation"? Console generation? Considering a-RPGs are one of pillars of PC gaming together with MMOs (so, to an extent, RPGs), shooters (though not any longer, I guess) and all sorts of strategy games, that would be completely wrong. A generation of players, then? Say, 10 years period? You'd have Neverwinter Nights and Gothic 2 releasing not that long before Fable. You'd have KotOR releasing roughly at the same time, and Mass Effect, Witcher1 and KotOR2 3 years later. Fable is 5 leagues below all of these games.

I guess it's a small victory for Fable if it got you interested it the genre, but your opinion of it seemsto be coming simply from the feeling of novelty. People tend to overrate things that seem revolutionary to them. That doesn't mean Fable was revolutionary by any means, or that it was one of the best RPGs of a generation. It was a solid game, I won't deny that, but nothing more.

If there's one game Lionhead made that was really groundbreaking, it was Black & White. Or maybe it actually wasn't, and my opinion only comes from the fact that it was the first PC game (well, aside of Mario and Pong ) I've played?

[Shinzai]

Good riddance. They were just a shadow of the team they were before and Peter Molyneux's endless array of half-finished projects was just depressing to look at.

[RuneDK]

Good?
They produced one of the best ARPGS of a generation.

Fable kicked it all off for me, in terms of RPG games.

You're not serious are you? hahahahahahaha

[Tommy T]

You're not serious are you? hahahahahahaha

I am serious.
Fable got me into the RPG genre.

Neverwinter, Baldur's Gate etc never did anything for me.

[zito]

Oh finally, we won't have another fable disaster. Maybe Fable one will get an HD remake

[Tommy T]

What do you mean by "generation"? Console generation? Considering a-RPGs are one of pillars of PC gaming together with MMOs (so, to an extent, RPGs), shooters (though not any longer, I guess) and all sorts of strategy games, that would be completely wrong. A generation of players, then? Say, 10 years period? You'd have Neverwinter Nights and Gothic 2 releasing not that long before Fable. You'd have KotOR releasing roughly at the same time, and Mass Effect, Witcher1 and KotOR2 3 years later. Fable is 5 leagues below all of these games.

I guess it's a small victory for Fable if it got you interested it the genre, but your opinion of it seemsto be coming simply from the feeling of novelty. People tend to overrate things that seem revolutionary to them. That doesn't mean Fable was revolutionary by any means, or that it was one of the best RPGs of a generation. It was a solid game, I won't deny that, but nothing more.

If there's one game Lionhead made that was really groundbreaking, it was Black & White. Or maybe it actually wasn't, and my opinion only comes from the fact that it was the first PC game (well, aside of Mario and Pong ) I've played?

It comes down to opinion at the end of the day.
I believe it was one of the stand out action RPGs of my generation. Probably one of the most popular games while I was growing up too.

[zito]

Umm, you don't have Steam, do you? Go lookie.

And I am very sad to hear this, as I am very fond of Fable. First game that got me and my hubby playing couch co-op, and let me to bigger and better RPG's, including WoW.

What I mean is like a FF7 style thing

[I Push Buttons]

I really enjoyed Black and White 2 back in the day, the first one was a little before my time.

The last game of theirs I played was Fable 3 and I hated it, at least insofar as I can remember.

I enjoyed playing, but the story/ending just pissed me off... I went through as a very good character and promised everything to everyone, then I became King and everyone came for their promises... I held up my end of the bargain and gave everyone what they wanted and it put the kingdom heavily in debt...

At that point I was like "alright lets do this, time to get the kingdom out of debt!" hit continue after all of the promises were fulfilled and boom, that was the end of the game... I got a message along the lines of "the kingdom didn't have any money to defend itself and everyone died, the end."

Was so pissed.

RIP to the studio though.

[Tech614]

Good?
They produced one of the best ARPGS of a generation.

Fable 1 was a good game but I don't even think it was close to being one of the best ARPGs of the generation, the generation which I would consider to be 1999-2006 with games released on PC/Xbox/Gamecube/PS2/Dreamcast. I think you seriously underrated the awesomeness of that period for the genre.

[Deleted]

Fable was a great game. The other two entries weren't totally terrible (I enjoyed 3 more than 2, though - ending aside) but it's clear they'd lost direction recently. Between the weird rail-shooter and the cash store moba or whatever they were developing, maybe it's for the best they don't continue to rape Fable. Let's all just remember it as a quirky trilogy that had some nice ideas and plenty of flaws.

RIP Lionhead. Hope the team members can find new jobs.

[Xargoth6634]

Kind of sad, I really enjoyed the first Fable, although I don't think I played any in the series after the second one. (Were there just three?) What's going to happen to the intellectual property, I wonder? I doubt Microsoft will do more than sit on it, but it'd be cool to see what a new team could do with the chance to make Fable 4.

[smackyslap]

There was a kinect game for fable that alone should tell you how good it was.

[Cosmic Janitor]

Like I said before I hope the fable IP gets handed off to a better studio that make more stuff like fable one and a lot less like 3.

One can only hope I guess. I wasn't interested in legends at all, so I don't really care about the end of that..

A shame for the people working there for sure, but to be honest, they haven't made truly stellar game - ever - and their best games were pretty good at best and those happened to be the first 2 of they made. I kinda hoped they would pick up the black and white idea again with VR and controls like the vive offers .

[WhiteEagle888]

Maybe microsoft will finally release Fable 2 for computers then? I have waited for so long now.