Microsoft has announced plans to shutter Lionhead Studios in the UK.
The developer’s Xbox One and Windows 10 game Fable Legends has been canned.
Danish studio Press Play is also gone. It created Max and the Curse of Brotherhood and Kalimba.
It revealed the news that Fable Legends - long in beta, and even longer in development - was no more. Microsoft also said it was “in discussions with employees about the proposed closure of Lionhead Studios” - a legal requirement for a company over a certain size.
In the UK, a consultation process must take place when this number of redundancies are announced - how long depends on the number of employees affected. But the writing is on the wall.
Not having PM there was probably a good thing. There wasn’t really anything to indicate that there was a problem going on, at least I haven’t seen any articles about troubled development.
It’s all thanks to Universal Windows Platform. The bane of software. Cut your ties to Winblows and move to a Linux distro asap. Microshaft is seriously more and more draconian as time passes. It’s not just UWP, it’s the entire windows ecosystem, since XP. I mean look at all the **** that happened to the windows store and 8…
To all the developers, if you are going to use uwp, you need a specific separate build with uwp because it cannot work with other software layers. You wanna use epic’s online subsystem for steam on uwp? Too bad. Wanna use anything else at all ? Too bad. The entire game has to be written to use the uwp and nothing else. I mean i get it, it’s a new platform service. BUT The PC market is so ****ing split already, why would they want to split it even more? Money. Exclusive titles. Control.
Furthermore, microshaft claims it will allow side-loaded applications and such, as it stands. But for how long can we really trust their statement? I mean look at all the times M$ said something and then went back on it…
I think its time for gamers to band together and join an ecosystem that is free, developed for us, by us. It’s the only way for us to break the chains of software enslavement.
BTW Fable Legends was canceled because the game was *****.
Considering it was being developed by Microsoft, I doubt that UWP was the reason for cancellation. From what it looks like, the game was playable and on track for release.
