Many people were sad to see Lionhead Studios shut down earlier this year. Worries have followed with ideas that the Fable series would be no more. It may interest some fans to know that Lionhead Studios wanted to make a different kind of Fable that Microsoft did not agree with.
In a report from Eurogamer, members of Lionhead Studios discussed their initial plans for Fable 4. Art director, John McCormack said that it was to be much darker and grittier than previous installments. It was also going to be set in the late-Victorian time period and be rated M. Microsoft thought the franchise had reached as many players as it could as an RPG and denied this new vision for a single-player game. Instead, they pushed for the free-to-play style, which led to Fable Legends. The rest is history.
Series creator Peter Molyneux has said that if asked to work on Fable 4 again, he would. Do you think Microsoft would ever consider this? They still own the rights to the Fable name, so anything is possible.