Fable Legends Open Beta Delayed till Next Year

Fable Legends was announced in 2013 by LionHead studios as the next big entry into the beloved Fable franchise. The twist this time, however, was that it was to be a social, multiplayer game where four players try to conquer dungeons prepared by villains, others players who craft their diabolical lairs by summoning monsters, traps, and bosses to obstruct the hero’s path. It was an ambitious idea and looked super cool--slightly marred by the reveal it would be free to play, mind, and it’s not hard to imagine where the microtransactions would surface--but even at the time Lionhead was certain a full open beta would take a long time to reach, and set their sights on 2015.

Well, with 16 days left in 2015 and no beta to be found, I don’t think it’s a terribly large surprise to hear they’re pushing that date back.



In a subsequent blog post:

“Fable Legends is coming together well and it’s a lot of fun. But we think that we can make it even better. So we’ve decided to extend our closed beta to continue to listen to feedback from our players and add features and polish that will make a real difference. This means Fable Legends won’t release into open beta this holiday as previously announced.”

Yep, a delay. But you know, that’s fair: it was Shigeru Miyamoto who said “A delayed game is delayed for a little while, but a bad game is bad forever”, and even in this seamlessly connected, DLC-and-Patch filled world, that’s still kind of true. I think the only game that was launched badly and fully forgiven after a patch or three was Destiny, and that’s just because Bungie was doing it.

Still, kind of a bummer. I’m looking forward to seeing what kind of game Legends turns out to be. Guess I have to wait a little bit longer. Or look at the information coming out of the closed beta, but… I don’t think I care that much.

Hey, I'm interested, just not that interested.