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Lionhead Studios Logo
All stories have to end eventually, but the memories of Heroic triumphs and Villainous plots will last forever. Thank you for your support - you are all Legends!
— Lionhead Studios, on the termination of Fable Legends

Lionhead Studios was a video game development company that was established in the United Kingdom in 1997 by Peter Molyneux. On March 7th 2016, Microsoft had announced that they were in talks with employees about the proposed closure of Lionhead Studios.[1] The studio was eventually shuttered just a few weeks later, on April 29th.[2][3]

History[]

Named after the studios producer Mark Webley's former hamster, Lionhead Studios was founded by developers who left Bullfrog Productions and was founded by Peter Molyneux. The first game they created was the god game Black & White. Following its release, the company got to work on a number of other projects, and signed on a couple of "satellite studios", one of which was Big Blue Box, developers of the original Fable, which fully merged with Lionhead shortly before Fable was released. The company went on to develop The Movies, and Black & White 2, but poor sales figures and delays in their production left Lionhead in a vulnerable financial state and primed for a takeover bid. In April of 2006, this bid was won by Microsoft Game Studios, over their primary opposition of Ubisoft.[4]

Since the acquisition and the shift in priority to a focus on Microsoft gaming platforms, Lionhead Studios achieved significant success with the creation of many successful video games, including the Fable series, which has since risen to be one of the highest selling RPG franchises in the market today. In addition to the Fable series, the company began work on the Kinect game Milo & Kate, although this game was eventually canned by Microsoft. Some of its features made their way into Fable: The Journey.

On 7 March 2012, Peter Molyneux announced he was leaving Lionhead to work at an independent developer called 22Cans. Lionhead co-founder Mark Webley took over as interim head of the studio[5] until the appointment of John Needham to that position in April 2013.[6] Gary Carr filled the role of Creative Director.[7]

Also in 2012, Lionhead pitched a proposal to Microsoft for an "expansive single-player game that built on the series’ heritage, set in a sprawling London-like city", but were informed that "you will not be given permission to make Fable 4, or something that is a shadow Fable 4" due to the shifting focus of Microsoft Studios Europe to "games as a service" under new director Phil Harrison.[8] As a result, Lionhead instead ended up working on what would become Fable Legends. This was a drastic shift in direction for Lionhead, as they had no previous experience with the ongoing support, monetisation, and player retention required for "games as a service".

According to gaming news site Kotaku, Fable Legends began to fall apart due to conflicting interests from the Microsoft corporate divisions. On one side, Microsoft Studios Europe under Phil Harrison had approved the pitch for a medium-scale, free-to-play game, while on the other, Phil Spencer and the Xbox division were pushing for a high-quality, AAA Fable experience they could use to sell Xbox consoles. As Kotaku put it, "So here was Lionhead, making an experimental free-to-play game that was quickly becoming as expensive as any major first-party game you could work on. It would have to be very successful to succeed."[8]

At the end of 2015, Phil Harrison left Microsoft, and Lionhead studio lead John Needham departed to focus on other Xbox properties in the wake of Harrison's departure. Hanno Lemke took over as general manager of Microsoft Studios Europe, as well as directly overseeing development at Lionhead. In early 2016, Microsoft expressed concern over the monetisation and player retention projections emerging from the Fable Legends beta, and in March, Lemke announced plans to close Lionhead, following a consultation period mandated by UK law. Kotaku reports that the studio employees only found out about the closure half an hour before Lemke's press release.[8] A number of potential buyers reportedly filed letters of intent to purchase Lionhead during the consultation period, but none of those came to fruition as Microsoft apparently refused to sell the Fable license alongside the studio.[9]

List of Games Created[]

In-Game References[]

A Lionhead back and chest tattoo can be found in Fable: The Lost Chapters.

In Fable II, Lionhead made a few references to themselves in the game:

  • Leo Head is a reference to Lionhead since Leo means lion.
  • Lion Head Isle is an island near Bloodstone and its name is a reference to Lionhead.
  • A Lionhead tattoo featuring the Lionhead logo can be achieved by completing "A Hero's Tale" - once completed it can be found in the Guild Hall chest. To achieve it the Player must choose the Hero Crown (left).

Lionhead also referenced themselves in Fable III:

  • While in Driftwood, if you try to swim towards the Spire, you will be stopped by an invisible wall and will be able to see the Lionhead Studios logo under water.

Team[]

Managers[]

Directors[]

Producers[]

Designers[]

  • Mark Webley - Lead Designer
  • Richard Ham - Lead Designer
  • Julian Glover - World Designer
  • Ian Yarwood-Lovett - World Designer (Fable)
  • Ben Huskins - Designer
  • Josh Atkins - Designer

Programmers[]

  • Simon Carter - Lead Programmer (Fable)
  • Martin Bell - Programmer

Writers[]

  • James Leach - Lead Writer
  • Mark Hill - Writer

Artists[]

  • Ian Yarwood-Lovett - Art Director
  • Kiki Wolfkill - Art Director

Musicians[]

Developers[]

Testers[]

  • Jeffrey Brutus - Lead Quality Assurance
  • Charlton Edwards - Assistant Quality Assurance

Controversies[]

Lionhead Studios have actually got themselves into a couple of interesting controversies during their time as a video game development studio.

Lionhead Troll[]

In the early years of the original Fable's development, a very small group that called themselves 'Kibitz' actually managed to hack and gain entry into the Lionhead Studios servers to obtain screenshots for an early version of the game (Project Ego) which were never meant to be released to the public. After gaining access to these early screenshots, Kibitz began to share them with people online and on the forums that were created by Lionhead Studios. Since the hacking group never masked their IP Address when posting on the gaming studios own forums, Lionhead were about to find the name and location of the people responsible for the leak and found ways of notifying them that they were aware of their identity. It turned out that Kibitz was infact just one person, who was a fan of the game.

Peter Molyneux[]

Despite being a renowned developer and designer in the video game industry, Peter Molyneux has got himself into a few controversies whilst working at the studio. This usually stems from interviews and presentations about games which he was working on, such as Black & White, The Movies and Fable. These moments have made a lot of the public criticise Peter, claiming that he is a "liar" and that he "hypes" his games before they are released. There is actually a name for this online called the 'Molyneux Cycle' which was coined by the YouTuber, Jim Sterling in 2015. In that same year, he ended up having an interview with the journalist website known as Rock Paper Shotgun, who straight up asked Peter Molyneux if he is "a pathological liar" which resulted in an awkward interview where Peter tried to defend his position by saying that he doesn't think that he has ever lied from his perspective. Eventually Peter would go on an unhinged rant which ended in him saying that he doesn't have a reputation in the video game industry anymore and refuses to talk to anyone from the media from that day on. However, Peter has been in interviews with the media since 2015 for other games.

Milo & Kate[]

Back in 2009, Peter Molyneux showed a demonstration of a what he said was a 'game' to the public at E3 that was called Milo & Kate, using the Project Natal (early version of the Kinect device). In the presentation, Peter claimed that you could interact with the main character of the game by moving your hands near the Project Natal Sensors and talking in the microphone. There was also the claim that anything you have in the world could be transported into the game by taking a photo of it with the PN Sensors. After E3, Microsoft would later make a public statement saying that Peter Molyneux wasn't being honest about the demonstration of the alleged game, which made Peter come forward and admit that it was just a Tech Demo. In later interviews with IGN, Peter has stated that Milo & Kate was just a Tech Demo and was most likely never going to become a game because the Project Natal was still in its early stages.

National Cleavage Day[]

On the 27th of March in 2015, the Lionhead Studios twitter page made a couple of posts related to National Cleavage Day which featured an in-game advertisement for a tavern known as The Foaming Jugs from Fable II to celebrate and promote the holiday in their own way. However, despite their attempts at light-hearted humour, a lot of people on the internet actually got offended by their posts. This resulted in the tweets being taken down not long after.

Trivia[]

  • When Lionhead Studios closed down, their twitter page was changed to Liondead Studios instead as a joke.
  • According to Peter Molyneux, when they named the Studio after Mark Webley's hamster, they checked on Lionhead the hamster only to realise it was actually dead and "stiff with rigormortis".

References[]

External links[]

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