With the recent close of Visceral Games, gamers are once again reminded of all of the franchises that are near and dear to them — especially of all of those franchises that have had their studios closed. While the game development studios remain closed, the General Manager of Global Games Publishing for Microsoft – Shannon Loftis – reminded us that these IPs may not always be forgotten in her recent interview with Gamespot on the future of the Fable series.
Back in March, Microsoft announced the end of Lionhead, the studio that was responsible for the Fable franchise. Fans were distraught, especially because the then-upcoming cooperative online game Fable Legends was nearing the end of development. While that game was snuffed out, the franchise found new life by way of Fable Fortune, a digital card game created by a separate studio still under the umbrella of Microsoft.
Loftis had this to say when asked about the series:
“Fable is very near and dear to my heart… Actually one of the primary reasons [I moved to England] was to work with the team on Fable II. Fable Fortune is now out, the card game. We love the IP. I can’t talk right now about whether we’re doing anything with it or not, but if I ever get the chance to go back to Albion…”
Even though the founder of Lionhead left the studio in 2012, it sounds like the Fable franchise won’t be shelved for too long. Xbox is always in need of first-party games to compete with the impressive PlayStation library so kickstarting mainline entries in the series would be a great way to bring fans of the series back to Microsoft’s console. Though Loftis’ statement doesn’t stand to mean that they are working on an entry, or that that is in the works for the future at all.
Fable Anniversary was recently added to Xbox’s list of backward-compatible games. You can also check out more on the aforementioned Fable Fortune here.