Changes at MS UK & Denmark, Fable Legends Development Ceased
- Thread starter Shifty Geezer
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Cancelled!Lionhead possibly closing.
Wow, that's sad... I was looking forward to at least checking this out. Loved the Fable and B&W games.
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http://news.xbox.com/2016/03/07/microsoft-studios-changes-uk-denmark/
"After much consideration we have decided to cease development on Fable Legends, and are in discussions with employees about the proposed closure of Lionhead Studios in the UK."
Officially cancelled, rip. Best of luck to those losing their jobs too.
"After much consideration we have decided to cease development on Fable Legends, and are in discussions with employees about the proposed closure of Lionhead Studios in the UK."
Officially cancelled, rip. Best of luck to those losing their jobs too.
D
Deleted member 13524
Guest
Yet another F2P title kicks the bucket.
It's a shame to see Lionhead disappear, though.
I had a blast playing Black&White and Fable 1 for PC during my teenage years. I was still hoping for a new B&W too.
It's a shame to see Lionhead disappear, though.
I had a blast playing Black&White and Fable 1 for PC during my teenage years. I was still hoping for a new B&W too.
RancidLunchmeat
Veteran
No surprise here. I was in the closed beta and the game was garbage.
I believe I even took some flak for saying so in the game thread.
I believe I even took some flak for saying so in the game thread.
https://twitter.com/LionheadStudios/status/705760152746647552
It seems like they didn't even know about it?
It seems like they didn't even know about it?
I was careful about the NDA, but now that isn't relevant. The beta was indeed garbage. I was in awe about how bad the game was.
That may have been me. My bad.
I didn't think the game was terrible, but it definitely never got any harder, and it didn't have any real hooks. The game took forever to load for a F2P, I had no interest in progressing further in the game.
Ah well maybe this WTF Microsoft! moment will overtake UWP
Thanks for the link, quite incredible and sympathy for the developers.
D
Deleted member 13524
Guest
No wonder the team got disbanded then.
They haven't been able to make a good and commercially successful game since Fable III back in 2010.
If Fable Legends had released, it would be 3 games and over 6 years of failures, not to mention the large maintenance that would be required for a F2P game.
D
Deleted member 86764
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Shame to hear about Lionhead, I was a big fan of Fable 1 & 2.
Not sure that it helped they were first developing a Kinect game and then onto a F2P one.
Not sure that it helped they were first developing a Kinect game and then onto a F2P one.
Sorry to hear about Lionhead.
Not too surprised by Fable Legends being cancelled - after a few attempts with the closed beta I couldn't get past the point that while it looked great and had a solid fable art style, the actual game just wasn't fun to play... I kept wondering how they were going to inject a game into it.
I really wanted to like it so kept going back to see if they'd added more to it than walking to the main town or allowed you to fight a wave of monsters without them seeming to be able to randomly damage you.
All the components were there but it seemed to lack a direction (or perhaps just needed a significantly delayed ship date
Not too surprised by Fable Legends being cancelled - after a few attempts with the closed beta I couldn't get past the point that while it looked great and had a solid fable art style, the actual game just wasn't fun to play... I kept wondering how they were going to inject a game into it.
I really wanted to like it so kept going back to see if they'd added more to it than walking to the main town or allowed you to fight a wave of monsters without them seeming to be able to randomly damage you.
All the components were there but it seemed to lack a direction (or perhaps just needed a significantly delayed ship date
D
Deleted member 13524
Guest
Wow, lots of great decisions coming from their management. Them bean-counters surely showed us how to make those big decisions.
It depends how much of the project focus and objectives came from them rather than Microsoft executives; would be interesting to know where the decisions were made for the design/scope of Fable Legends.
Without that info it is a bit difficult to tell whether they should be held totally accountable, that said they still had excellent staff and knowledge so I do feel sympathy for the developers.
Cheers
D
Deleted member 11852
Guest
Sony Santa Monica (the God of War folks) had a project cancelled in 2014, followed by a bunch of lay offs. Sometimes you just have to cut your losses. Sony didn't close SSM because they do a lot of 'collaborative incubation', i.e. they help other teams deliver games like The Order, Journey, Unfinished Swan, Everybody's Gone to the Rapture and many more.
But those not part of the core technology team (as far as I can tell) were let go. Because you don't need a project managers, creative directors, programmers, artists and sound guys when you're aren't making a game. It's just the hard side of game development. People with nothing to work on are an unnecessary expense.
I wonder if Sony's Naughty Dog studio restructured to operate two concurrent teams to help prevent inflation/conflation issues because it's got to be very disruptive and can't be great for morale either - it's much nicer if people can transition almost seamlessly from one project to the next at the exact time they are needed.