Recently in March, Microsoft had announced that they were ceasing the development of Lionhead Studios’ famed free-to-play online cooperative game, Fable Legends. They said in a statement, that the company will “focus its investment and development on the games and franchises that fans find most exciting and want to play”, hinting on the fact that they were in talks with the folks at Lionhead Studios about a possible shut down of the Studio.
Now, the news has been confirmed that Lionhead Studios has reached a closure. The studio’s parent company, Microsoft confirmed in a statement. While speaking to Polygon, they further added, “We remain committed to the development communities in the UK and Europe, and have been working to support Lionhead employees in finding new opportunities at Microsoft or in the wider gaming industry.”
People took to twitter to bid adieu to the studio.
Last day of Lionhead:-( pic.twitter.com/zfXobF7wzY
— Stuart Whyte (@stuwhyte) April 29, 2016
Goodbye @LionheadStudios #Lionhead pic.twitter.com/qVZgXPew4k
— Chris Cook (@Piranhi) April 29, 2016
Lionhead Studios closing today… Very emotional even though I left in 2011. But once a lion… #riplionhead pic.twitter.com/JyH7JXCyzg
— Georg Backer (@georgbacker) April 29, 2016
Lionhead Studios was founded by Peter Molyneux in 1996 and was acquired by Microsoft in 2006. Their first game was Black & White, which was published by Electronic Arts in 2001. In these 10 years, the studio managed to come out with 13 games and went on to win many accolades. As announced in 2013, Fable Legends was scheduled to go into beta this spring on PC and Xbox One but seems like we won’t be able to witness the game as the game’s servers were shut down indefinitely on 13 April.
We wish Lionhead Studios team good luck for their future endeavours.
