Lakeisha Tan

While development on the inevitable Fable 4 will surely be affected, the developer has agreed to stay on as a creative consultant for the studio's Kinect/ Fable mash-up Fable Skills Guide|Https://Fablechronicle.Com/: The Journey - which, like many Lionhead games, has already enjoyed a lengthy development cy It's hard to say that the Fable franchise was left on the best footing by 2012's Fable: The Journey . Released last October, punctuating the Peter Molyneux era at Lionhead Studios , the game's reception was mixed at best, with many reviews like ours highlighting some demonstrable Kinect-based gameplay flaws despite an intriguing storytelling prem " The ideal candidate is someone who has leading industry experience on AAA titles, including large scale RPG, Action Adventure and RTS genres ," it advertises, demanding later that " background working on new franchises or reimaginings of existing franchises " is essential, along with the " proven ability to bring new ideas to new franchise whilst ensuring its heritage is respecte Should the listings indeed apply to Fable 4 , Lionhead's "reimagining" may well arrive in the form of a next-generation, free-to-play MMO. For one, The Journey , as mentioned, already took a significant departure from the Fable foundation with its implementation of Kinect-based gameplay and a more linear narrative. And when Lionhead hired former Cryptic Studios CEO John Needham to head up operations this April, parent company Microsoft was quick to extoll his "deep understanding" of "subscription-based, massively multi-player, client-based console and free-to-play online [experience Now, for the first time in just under 10 years, fans of the original game are being given the chance to returns the wilds of Albion, (the Xbox to Xbox 360 emulation is plagued with performance issues) via the Fable Anniversary edition. Announced back in June of this year, the project, which sees the game receiving a full HD makeover , audio re-master and optional gameplay upgrade has now also received a firm release date — February 4, 2014, throughout North America and just three days later in Eur Winter's still going on strong - for most of us, anyway - but the gaming release lull is slowly coming to an end! While most February releases are still geared towards the previous generation, there are a few next-gen games that should start the ball rolling for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Let's take a look at what February has to of There was one new IP shown that got our attention as gamers for a brief moment, Codename: KINGDOMS , with no game-play or true promotion. This was quickly watered down for those of us at home who saw those covering the event immediately drawing comparisons between this and the God of War franchise. Eventually they revealed the Xbox 360 S (a.k.a. Slim) which did little to entice owners of functioning Xbox 360s. Another thing that worked against MS was the decision to demo Call of Duty: Black Ops , a multi-platform game for a longer period of time than most of their other showcases. Yes, there was talk of some timed exclusivity for the DLC (wouldn't be MS without some) but this too was little to parade over since this deal has already been standard with bestseller Modern Warfare 2 . All things considered, the Microsoft Press Conference was almost hard to watch. I had thought ahead of time that MS could show many strong new IPs and win E3 2010, but boy was I wr Saturday there will be panels for Rock Band 3 , Dance Central , Red Faction: Armageddon , Epic Mickey and Guild Wars 2 . While these panels may not be as big as the ones taking place on Friday, there should still be lots to keep your eyes That criteria is consonant with a Lionhead job listing which surfaced last year, brimming with suggestive language related to next-gen engine/graphical design. There are some curious distinctions, however, present in the animation director description that point directly toward work on the Fable franch Given the new 22 Cans venture, it's unclear how involved Molyneux will actually be as a "creative consultant" and it's hard not to speculate that title is more of a PR move than an actual indication that the designer will be very involved in the completion of the project. The "creative consultant" position is becoming a go-to move for developers lately, as major figure-heads leave fan-favoite studios in the midst of oft-delayed projects, since the situation is especially reminiscent of the recent Fumito Ueda/Team Ico change- But if anything, The Journey did offer the series room to breath after its three main installments between 2005 and 2010. Creator Peter Molyneux has already promised that Fable 4 would come to fruition at some point in the foreseeable future, and a pair of job listings from Lionhead Studios suggests that a major series overhaul -- perhaps even a full reboot -- is underway for the next generat For those who had a hard time getting the original game and its expansion pack Fable: The Lost Chapters to run on the 360, it's a real shame that the re-worked effort is also set to become immediately outdated. Developing the game as an Xbox 360/ Xbox One downloadable might have made more sense, given the timing of the anniversary as slap bang in the middle of the second wave of Xbox One tit