Fable Legends will be free-to-play

Normally I cringe when a game decides to go free-to-play from the outset. While we still don't have a whole lot of concrete details about Capcom's Deep Down, I was a bit sad to learn it would be a free-to-play title. The red flags certainly shot up the second I saw Fable Legends would also adopt the F2P model, but then I read Lionhead's vision of the future, and I think their decision was a sound one.

Making the game F2P, first and foremost, is a smart idea for a game like this. For those unfamiliar, Fables Legends takes the already established franchise and turns it into a multiplayer-only adventure. It was a gamble to begin with. This way anyone even remotely interested will be able to try it ott without any barrier of entry. But F2P games usually come with many pitfalls; Limited game time, pay-to-win scenarios, etc. Luckily, Lionhead addressed all of these.

On their dev blog, Lionhead outlines three pillars that Fable Legends will be built upon: Being Open, Fair and Generous. By the game being Open, they're stating that all the content in the game, both on launch and future updates, will always be free. Everyone will be able to experience all the story missions completely free of charge, without spending a single penny. The Fair pillar touches on the pay-to-win scenario, ensuring that anything in Fable Legends that affects gameplay, will be earned through gameplay and not through microtransactions. And lastly, being Generous means they plan on updating the game constantly with new missions, new heroes and new villains to play as.

Both Heroes and Villains will be in constant rotation. There will always be four heroes available on rotation, meaning patient players will eventually get to play as every hero in the game. What's cool is that any of your progress done with a certain hero will be saved, even if they're not currently offered. If you happen to like a certain hero and would like to have him or her available at all times, you can then spend the in-game currency of Silver, if you have enough saved up, or buy Gold with real money and buy the character that way. It's a system that has worked for Riot and League of Legends for years now.

Of course, with such a complicated infrastructure, which will now support cross-play between PCs running Windows 10 and Xbox One, Lionhead will be running an extensive Beta to ensure that not only bugs are squashed prior to its undisclosed release, but also ensuring that connectivity between platforms is smooth.