Lawrence Chastain

Having recently finished Fable 3 myself, I was eagerly anticipating a reveal for Lionhead Studios’ next adventure. Though this wasn’t exactly the Fable I was looking for, I went into the demo with an open mind and came out a believer, not just because of the compelling power of Peter Molyneux’s imagination, but because the game sounds really awes Fable: The Journey is expected to be released this year, so it's certainly possible that Molyneux's work on the game is mostly complete - as the title, presumably, is in the hands of department designers and no longer requires larger visioning or shaping. That said, it's much more likely that development on the inevitable (yet unannounced) Fable 4 will take the biggest hit (not to mention the recently announced Fable: Heroes ) - given how involved Molyneux has been with the previous full-scale Fable adventu Welcome to the first day of Game Rant's E3 2010 coverage. The first big event of the show, Microsoft's press conference, is scheduled to begin at 10:30 AM Pacific Time. No doubt there will be a ton of information on the newly named Kinect . But what else? Will we see the rumored Xbox 360 Slim ? Any new news on Halo: Reach or Gears of War 3 ? And what surprises are in st 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 "As co-founder of Lionhead and an integral part of Microsoft Studios, Peter was the creative visionary behind the blockbuster Fable franchise, and one of our most passionate and influential developers for the Xbox 360 platform. He has made an indelible mark on the games industry and we wish him all the best of luck in his future endeavo With a new engine delivering improved visuals, and a new way to execute combat and traversal, Fable: The Journey has the chance to make great headway for the Kinect hardware. Molyneux seems like he understands Kinect much better than other developers, and he promises to make a believer out of each and every naysa " 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 Following the initial Kotaku report, Molyneux took to Twitter (for the first time since November 16th) to chat it up with fans and other industry icons ( Minecraft creator, Notch plus the aforementioned Cliffy B) - as well as reveal his plans for the fut Opening up the month is the anticipated Fable Anniversary , a re-imagining of the hit RPG originally released on the Xbox nearly ten years ago. It arrives February 4th for the Xbox 360. On the 5th, internet "let's play" sensation Outlast will be available on the PS4. Later in the month, Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII makes its way to the PS3 and Xbox 360 on February 11th. Rayman Legends jumps into the next-gen fray on the 18th, giving some much-needed platformer action to the PS4 and Xbox One. The Wii U gets its own taste of more platformer goodness on the 21st, when Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze swings into action. Finally, the long-awaited Thief reboot finds its way to all major platforms after nearly a decade of abse It looks like there's a lot more to look forward to this month, with more releases on the PS4 and Xbox One. Although it won't be until March that the next-gen titles start pouring in, February should have many releases to keep gamers occupied. Ranters, what are you most looking forward to? Let us know in the comments section below! As for me, I'll be counting the days until Thief releases on St 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- It's a source of controversy whenever a game developer favors a console hop over to here the PC (many would say that Crytek shackled Crysis 2 on the PC for this reason). In some ways it makes sense to be critical - as gamers usually put down astronomical amounts of cash for the latest, most powerful, hardware for their gaming machines. As a result, they rightly want to see it used prope