Lionhead Studios Announces Fable Legends as Free-to-Play

Remember Fable Legends back at E3 of last year? The game that involved up to four players banding together to defeat the villains? Or involved one player being the villain and destroying the heroes in a labyrinth?

Well, you can become excited to know that you can explore Albion for free. The game is - yes - free-to-play!

So some of you may groan at the thought. It could mean a variety of issues. We all know the stigma free-to-play carries - microtransactions that are possibly gating, and unfair advantages to other players.

However, this does not seem to be the case here.

The developers behind Fable Legends have laid out three clear commitments:

Open

Youll be able to play Fable Legends from beginning-to-end without spending a penny. That means youll have access to the entirety of Fable Legends storyline and all of the quests we release this year and forever.

Fair

Everything in Fable Legends that affects gameplay can be earned by simply playing the game.

Generous

Our goal is to have a happy community of players. Well be updating the game with exciting new quests to play through, Heroes to play as, Villain creatures to control, and lots more.

So what exactly will the model be for Fable Legends? Well, no matter what role you play,  you will earn Silver to spend in-game. You can also buy Gold with real money, which can be used to purchase Silver items.

Well, this could be good or bad. Depending on the items, this could go toward the pay-to-win route. One mechanic involves Silver and Gold are the heroes. First of all, the game will rotate heroes, so you have a chance to play all four, but you can't choose between the four. So, to have a chance to choose from the four, you can "unlock" them via Silver or Gold.

So that doesn't seem so bad. You can also unlock more traps and gain allegiance of creatures using Silver or Gold, but this could borderline into pay-to-win territory.

Ah well, let's hope this will be a fun game that will not be broken. The game does not have a scheduled release date, and we may not hear of a date until the end of this year, but you can surely sign up for the beta.The game will be available for Xbox One and Windows 10.