The closure of Lionhead Studios, the creators behind the famous (and my personal favourite) Fable series, brought dismay to the hearts of gamers alike. Microsoft shut down the studio earlier in 2016 when it was on the verge of releasing Fable Legends, an action RPG where you could play as the hero or the villain.
It does not seem likely that there would be another mainline Fable title in the future. Although a digital card game known as Fable Fortune was released, it wasn’t made by Lionhead Studios. If Microsoft were to bring it back, that would please Xbox boss Shannon Loftis, who heads up Xbox’s first-party publishing team.
“Fable is very near and dear to my heart,” Loftis said. “Actually one of the primary reasons [I moved to England] was to work with the team on Fable II.”
Loftis’ role as GM of Xbox Publishing for first-party games means she would be a key player in bringing back the Fable franchise. Though as of yet, we don’t know if there have been any pitches internally at Microsoft to do so. Given the name and prominence of Fable as a franchise, we would be surprised if it never came back.
Fable Legends had big ambitions and Microsoft envisioned the free-to-play cooperative game living for as many as 10 years, with Microsoft releasing updates constantly to keep players engaged. But in the end, it just wasn’t meant to be.
So although there is nothing official about the next Fable game, we do know that the head of Xbox’s first-party publishing team, Shannon Loftis, is as excited and ambitious about Fable as us. There is, after all, a little hope and it’s all that matters.
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