We had a little glimpse of what happened during Lionhead's death earlier this morning, but our cousins at Eurogamer have just published a mammoth article about the company's life. I'll pick out some choice excerpts below, but you should go have a read.
]]>Unsurprising but sad news: what prevented the recently-closed, much-missed Britsoft studio Lionhead from finding a new home under another owner was, allegedly, Microsoft's refusal to let the Fable IP go with it.
]]>Lionhead Studios, The English developer behind Fable, The Movies, and Black & White, closed down today. Peter Molyneux and other former members of Bullfrog Productions founded Lionhead in 1996, and Microsoft bought it in 2006. Molyneux himself left in 2012 to start new studio 22cans. Microsoft still haven't really explained why they're closing Lionhead. But they publicly announced in March that they were "in discussions with employees about the proposed closure of Lionhead Studios", and there aren't many ways back to safe ground from that point. Alas, today was the final day for Lionhead. Godspeed, you cow-tickling, guff-blasting chicken-chasers.
]]>Last month, the British game development family tree had one of its most venerable branches lopped off, when Microsoft announced the probable closure of Lionhead Studios. Though best known for the Fable series, the Guildford outfit once headed by Peter Molyneux also has Black & White and The Movies to its name, and many of its original key staff were the guiding forces behind Bullfrog greats such as Syndicate and Dungeon Keeper. Whatever one might feel about their status as a Fable factory following a Microsoft buy-out, there's serious heritage there.
Recent murmurs and rumours suggest that, while a closure for Lionhead as we knew it is still on the cards, the exact nature of how it will happen and what will become both of staff and the well-into-development and free-to-play Fable Legends is still in flux. There may even be a future for the cancelled Fable Legends after all.
]]>Sad news, mostly because a studio with some serious heritage looks set to be closed down, but partly because said studio never had a chance to set out its own identity following the departure of founder Peter Molyneux. Lionhead was what the co-creator of Populous, Theme Park, Syndicate and Dungeon Keeper did after Bullfrog (with the help of dozens of talented colleagues), and while it was always a divisive studio the ambition and exuberance it showed in the Black & White and Fable games will be sorely missed.
Microsoft today announced the studio's next (and first post-Molyneux) title, Fable Legends, has been cancelled, and that it is "in discussions with employees about the proposed closure of Lionhead Studios in the UK."
]]>Oh! We never said what Fable Legends [official site] even is. Microsoft announced a PC version during their big Windows 10 announce-o-rama in January, but it became just another bullet point in a huge newsblast. So. While your typical Fable game is a sprawling open-world, story-driven RPG, Fable Legends is a multiplayer dungeon-crawling action-RPG where up to 4 players can band together in co-op against forces controlled by a villainous player (or AI in any of these roles). And, it was announced yesterday, it'll be free-to-play.
]]>Update: Windows 10 will be free to users of Win 7, Win 8 and Win 8.1 for a year. Fable Legends coming to PC Xbox One cross-platform multiplayer.
What is it? We don't know. It could be some crazy Xbox/PC crossover. It could be simply more about DirectX 12 and its straight-to-the-metal performance boost promises. It could be a new-gen GFWL (ick). It could just be a Steam rival, seeing as everyone else has one these days. It could be Minesweeper 2 (that'd be great, actually). Alls we knows is that, uncharacteristically, they're making a bit of a song and dance about it. In fact, we have a correspondent out at the Windows 10 event due to begin at 5pm UK/9AM PST (i.e any minute now), and RPS doesn't traditionally get invited to Microsoft briefings, so something relevant to our neck of the woods is clearly on the cards.
]]>
