Fable Legends will be free to play

Fable Legends is Indeed Free-to-Play – And it's Not a Bad Thing

[jackanderson1985]

a FTP that doesn't seem like a P2W nice

[Gazondaily]

Yeah but it's still lame. I hate the F2P model. It deprives you of content otherwise available to you.

The only game that does it well that I know of is League of Legends.

[edit] ACtually, it doesn't sound too bad:

"There will be no paywalls, no limited game time, no horrible "energy bars" or "gems" or whatever that take time to recharge. There will be 4 heroes available to play at any one time, and they will rotate every 2 weeks. Then, if you want to keep playing a character, you can either wait for them to come back into rotation (with all your XP and equipment intact), or pay to unlock them permanently. You can pay either with earned in-game money or real money, and you can also pay for cosmetic items; everything gameplay-related can only be earned through play."

[halfblackcanadian]

How is this still lame? And how is not paying for something depriving of content otheriwise avaialable? The point is that it ISN'T otherwise available, because you didn't pay anything for it. The entire idea is that if you are having fun with the product that nobody is forcing you to pay for then you can make the educated decision to pay any increment you want (to a degree) and add value to the overall package.

[4Sh0w]

"Multiplayer-only Fable will always be a tough sell for some, but the game's fun, crucially, the fairytale Fable feel is definitely there, and the barrier to entry is low, so anyone can try it out (and then walk away with wallet intact if it doesn't appeal)." -Kotaku

-Well it looks great with that classic Fable fairytale style world. I signed up for the beta so I'm hoping to see what the gameplay is like.

[bleedsoe9mm]

disagree for the first part , darn i can't change to agree for the second part....sorry

[AngelicIceDiamond]

@Septic I agree its not SO bad.

But I still wish this was a full retail release however.

Its like they should of just made Fable 4. They should of just gave us a proper Fable instead of a simple F2P.

Who knows maybe I'll end up liking it but the idea of F2P rubbed me the wrong way.

[NuggetsOfGod]

wow MS doing f2p right!! I would pay for a favorite character if the price is not $60 lol

Sure it won't be.

[DragonKnight]

Do people really like the idea of paying money to play as their favourite character?

The question that needs to be answered is how easy is it to earn in-game currency, because if it's anything like, say, AC Unity then you're going to end up waiting 2 weeks to play as your favourite character, or paying money for the privilege of playing with that character again.

I may be in the vast minority in this opinion, and that's fine, but 99% of the time when I see "Free To Play" I also see "With Provisions" while imagining the execs of whatever company that released the game having giant dollar signs in their eyes.

[dcbronco]

Overall it sounds like a good deal. If you don't want to wait then pay. As long as it isn't an insane amount it's a good deal. Even ten dollars for a game you paid nothing for is completely reasonable. We just had a bunch of people saying $60 wasn't high for five hours of gameplay. Then $10 seems more than reasonable for a game that should provide twenty hours of single player and countless more multi player.

[TheFanboySlayer]

I think HearthStone does a good job with it's F2P model lol

[Gamer1982]

Fable R.I.P. MS destroying our favourite IPs one at a time :(. Love the Fable series and played the first 3 games to death. This is what happens when you leave your IP with a company who only really cares about money and not games.

[Fireseed]

@Dragon

Yeah it's just you. If it takes time to earn it who cares? The fact that it's available a all to be earned for free is good. Besides, you always end up paying for your favorite character in any game. Just in this pay model you can choose to ONLY pay for your favorite character.

[clouds5]

Don't forget path of exile. It's a very good game and there is no pay 2 win involved.

[nicksetzer1]

I gotta say, this is an AWESOME choice on MS/Lionhead's behalf. I would have been VERY hesitant to buy this game (as most would I am sure) but as a free to play you can play with ALL your friends, no purchase necessary. (console and PC)

[christocolus]

Agreed. Its a really bold move. A very interesting one for sure,this deceision will greatly benefit the game in the end.it price of entry has been greatly reduced everyone gets to try it. My friends who have been skeptical about it will definitly give it a try now. If they love it and get hooked then its a plus for lionhead/MS.

[Kingdomcome247]

I don't understand how these things work exactly. I considered this game to be triple A caliber with the huge development team and first party affiliation. The visuals look awesome, and it's obvious quite a a bit of money has been poured into the game. Do they really make a profit by solely hoping people pay to keep the characters that they like permanently, and for cosmetic items? I don't understand the business model being used for what seemed to be a large scale game.

[jon3sy9]

@kingdomcome247 the pc gamers need an xbox live gold account to play this f2p game and it is only on windows 10

[ABizzel1]

@nicksetzer1

Completely agree. Never would have bothered with this game at full or reduced price, but as a F2P I'm willing to give it a fair run, and if I like it then by all means I'm willing to buy some content simply to support the developer.

F2P isn't always bad, so long as the game is fun, has enough content to support it, isn't pay to win, and has a fair exchange with additional content.

[Palitera]

Doesn't mean it will be P2W, only that it won't be very good.

[jackanderson1985]

never said it was a P2W, said the opposite infact....and other FTP's have succeeded in being great with a similar set up so no reason why this one couldn't

[Palitera]

I know, I agreed with you.

About it potentially being very good, we are at 2015. There's no chance for a F2P game to be a top quality product.

F2P today = garbage. Pure and simple.

[Chanogram]

Warframe and others say hello.

[Palitera]

Exactly. Actually, A LOT of average games, at best, say hello.

[UnwanteDreamz]

I can remember certain people bashing PS4 for ftp games.

[telekineticmantis]

That's what I was saying, usually when we are talking Planetside or H1Z1, we hear all this negativity, That's what I was expecting ,but this sounds like rejoice. Well at least everyone's on the same page now.

[telekineticmantis]

Remember, you can not deny the power of Microsoft.

[HeartlessGamer]

@timotim Maybe becuase a lot of them are hypocrites and love to bash PlayStation? This has happened before on bothsides

[3-4-5]

Solid news.

* Planetside 2 & War Thunder are both F2P games that actually do a good job of not being cheap.

It's still skill based and you don't need to buy anything.

I'm hoping this is the same.

[XanderZane]

Yes, it doesn't sound to bad and I will gladly give it a try since it's F2P. I thought they were also going to have some kind of single play mode where the other characters would be AI bot controlled and you could still complete regular quests without having to be in multiplayer mode. I'm still interesting to see how this works and how much content will be in the game at launch. Apparently they are doing a Season 1, Season 2, etc... type model. If the game is very good, I won't have any problems paying real money for a character or two.

[Bigpappy]

What I can say from watching the video, is that the game is beautiful and looks fun. This seems like a good spin off. Can't wait to give it a go.

[aviator189]

I just want to play the beta already.

and this-> "There will be no paywalls, no limited game time, no horrible "energy bars" or "gems" or whatever that take time to recharge...everything gameplay-related can only be earned through play"
Sounds pretty good to me.

[StrayaKNT]

That's very good news, this game looks stunning can't wait to team up with three friends and casually slap villians.

[Immorals]

This game went from intrigued into excited all in one sentence!

[Roccetarius]

Well, that's certainly a shame. I'll have to pass on this then.

[halfblackcanadian]

How could this possibly make the game worse for you? Like Killer Instict I'm sure there's an option to pay completely up front and have everything available to you, the only difference is theoretically you won't run out of online-match possibilities (like KI)

[WellyUK]

F2P is enough to put anyone off... People don't want it... why? because it's a by word for shoddy games 90% of the time. And at the end of the day most F2P games say they aren't pay 2 win but they usually are.

[Spenok]

I agree. Though this game wasn't looking all that good to me in the first place. It's a shame what has happened to this franchise as a whole.

Not to say the game is going to be bad, I'm sure more than a fair share of people will enjoy this game.

[kurruptor]

Uh, it looks like it is partly pay to win.

- You can play 1 of 4 characters on a 2 week rotation.
-You get to build your character up (better gear) for 2 weeks, then your character gets rotated out (will come back in another rotation).
- But, you have an option to pay and keep your character in rotation.

Anyone who refuses to pay... they have a weaker character when the rotation changes. If you pay, you keep your stronger character. Isn't that an advantage for paying people?

[Outthink_The_Room]

Not necessarily. Because if it's like Killer Instinct, when your character rotates back in, your skills should still be there. I play as Spinal so I bought him. But if Sabrewolf or Jago or someone comes into rotation, my fighter level stayed the same.

If they implement something like that, then you should carry over skills when they come back into rotation. I kind of hope they go the KI approach. Buy a season full of characters and have them forever and keep adding to it, every year.

[halfblackcanadian]

You have a point there.

That said, it's not a total bust because the people who pay aren't always directly at odds with those that don't. It all depends on how the enemy and "dungeon master" power scales in those instances. Maybe minions get a power boost dependant on total protagonist XP level..? Kind of have to wait and see with that one.

It will be like Killer Instinct really - you can be really good and get the most out of it if you pay, and clearly you can get more practice with a particular character if you do so, but ultimately this game is a littel more basic in that there are only so many classes and your play style won't change so much, just the effectiveness of the character.

[OpieWinston]

That's not even close to Pay to Win.... If you COMMIT to a hero and like it... Then you SHOULD buy it for the low price of (Whatever).

The whole point of this is to give you an incentive to purchase the hero. That way they keep track of who's the most fun, and likeable.

Advantage for paying people? P2W means I pay for advantages... Paying to unlock a hero ISNT an advantage when you put 20 hours into it and loved him but are too cheap to buy him/her. You're getting access to 4 heroes every 2 weeks. That's about 50% of the hero roster cycling through.

This is one of the most balanced F2P systems I've ever seen... next to MOBAs where it's PURELY cosmetics/Heroes.

[kurruptor]

You're basically saying it isn't P2W because the other people are just too cheap to do the same? Makes sense, but not really.

You're paying to keep your potentially powerful character 100% of the time.

[kurruptor]

We don't even know how teams will work, so your arguments may not even apply.

[hello12]

I guess we now know why an x box exclusive ended up on PC too, its free to play.

Thats cool to be honest so i can play it on either my PC or x box 1 without having to buy it. If Microsoft funded this game they are changing a lot under Phil Spencer.

[christocolus]

I totally agree. By making this F2p everyone gets to try it out( even those who have been skeptical) and hopefully the devs make their money back (from player purchases).everyone benefits.its a risk but a very good one. Another benefit of coding with dx12 across two platforms. They called it a high budget console f2p and im sure the previous management would never have agreed to something like this( f2p model). Phil on the other hand knows exactly what needs to be done to get gamers interested and happy,he also does what's best for the devs. I'm indeed very happy with this news. Great job lionhead. Tnx Phil.

[HaydenJameSmith]

Agreed, I was a bit disappointing at the news at first when I read the headline (cause of the usually stigma surrounding the free to play model in games) but honestly this doesn't sound to bad...

"Four heroes will initially be available for free. After a couple of weeks, all four will become unavailable and be replaced by a new quartet. This will continue, eventually looping round and starting again. In-game silver, earned through quests, can be used to add a hero to your stable permanently or you can use real money. Thankfully your hero and equipment progress won't be reset each time they get taken off rotation, so you can start where you left off each time your favourite character returns."

"So that's the heroes, but what about the villains? On that front, Microsoft reveals those of a more dastardly inclination will have their own story to play through, during which you'll be able to buy additional creatures to use in maps that wouldn't normally support them. Additionally traps and gates will also be up for grabs, along with magical standing stones."

It seems very similar to the Killer Instinct model which as far as I am aware was received very well by fans. Plus from what we've seen of it and the development process it doesn't seem watered down in terms of quality and gameplay (which a lot of Free to plays kind of are). So what we got here is a free to play that shares the same quality as any big AAA game that is charged at $60 with a reasonable pricing model and cross-plat between xbox and pc gamers. Honestly I can't see anything wrong with this...

[Duke19]

Awesome news for this game! Im kind of meh on F2P titles in general, although this definitely sounds like one of the best possible implementations for the gamer.

[Kribwalker]

I'm excited about this, I tried signing up for the beta with mine, my wife's, and both my kids accounts, so far I have been unlucky though...

[OpieWinston]

It being F2P wasn't what I intended for it considering I was willing to put down big bucks on it.

But it being F2P mixed with Cross Play on Windows 10... means that their 5-10 DLC plan will actually happen. Meaning this will be the biggest Fable ever, and has the potential to grow into a massive experience with the support from the community since this doesnt have a lot of pay walls and is a high quality F2P game.

Real question is... How do you NOT try this out?

[KiwiViper85]

Could this be the new League of Legends?

It seems that's the direction its heading, new modes could be opened up allowing 4v4 pvp, PCvXbox, even team deathmatch if the demand is there.

[AnimeFreak013]

This is where it lost my interest now. In my opinion i would rather pay full amount and get all the good stuff though normal gameplay instead of devs trying to make it extra hard just so they can get extra money to make it easier just to get what u want in games. Now very few or pretty good with F2P games like planetside 2 and warfame but most are epic fail.

[mhunterjr]

This is the perfect business model for this type of game. Online only titles live and die by the size of there player base. And the one sure way to get a lot of people playing the game is to remove the entrance barriers. By making the game free and available on Win10, a massive number of people can get in on the action.

Allowing people to pay for cosmetics and additional characters is a great way to create a revenue stream without creating any balancing issues. And it's nice to see that the character rotation idea from KI is being brought to this game. Try before you buy. Hopefully there will be an option to but them all at once, just like KI.

[BLow]

OK, I not against FTP. I actually put over 600 hours into Warframe. BUT, you notice a trend on here if you read through comments. Most of the time, people sh!t on FTP titles. Not saying this one will be bad but now an exclusive to another system is announced FTP(which should have been said from the beginning) and now everyone thinks FTP is great. Now, FTP is a great idea , now this is the perfect model, and now all of a sudden more people can enjoy the game.

Isn't that the point of most FTP. I don't know I guess I'm reading too much into this. Hopefully, it works out as some FTPs are better than retail games....

[mhunterjr]

F2P isn't the devil. It can be done well, and it can be done in an abusive matter. Based on this article, Fable Legends is being handled in a fair way, that doesn't effect balancing, doesn't obstruct people who don't pay, and fosters a large community.

[Slevon]

This game wasn't looking like a full price game to me before but i'm pretty happy I get to try it out. FTP was the way to go as long as things aren't ridiculously priced

[ic3fir3]

wow good choice from lionhead <3

2015 free to play on xbox one
Smite
World of Tanks
Happy Wars 2.0
Neverwinter
Fable Legends

best console for multiplayer <3

[DigitalRaptor]

For real? PS4 actually has more multiplayer games across all game types, more diverse multiplayer experiences, and actually has more free-to-play games in 2015 and beyond.

Neverwinter is also coming to PS4 <3

[ic3fir3]

have more free to play but inferior games =D

diverse mmultiplayer? lool
Killzone?
DC?
vs
titanfall, Halo mcc, horizon 2, Killer instinct, forza 5, Sunset Overdrive

ps4 does not have any good multiplayer game, that speaking in exclusive.

Xbox one, Halo 5, Gears and titanfall makes the difference on online. is one of the best online games on consoles

[nickster]

Jump in .... yeah Phil Spencer he so cool lol

[DaleCooper]

I want to believe this will be an okay thing, but my desire to play this game is down to practically nothing because of this news. Maybe I'll try it, but probably not.

[Antifan]

Not even worth pirating... oh wait

[MilkMan]

Yeah I saw this video and it put a smile on my face. IF the game is fun and diverse and plenty to do then this is a win/win for Microsoft and Free to Play games which have basically leaving a bad taste in everyone's mouth.

I'm sure MS will be sending royalty checks to the Evolve devs for showing them exactly how NOT to do DLC and MP only games.

Hope this game sticks.

[jon3sy9]

What better way can you think of to get people to upgrade their Pc to windows 10 and sign up to xbox live, master stroke by microsoft, if the game is good, the uptake will be massive

[qwerty676]

League of Legends was really the game that started this whole ftp push

people saw how successful that was and tried to emulate it.

but League does it in a way where the player never feels like someone whos shoveled out $100s has an unfair advantage.

they make their money on champion skins mostly, there is xp and ip boosts but again its very fair.

hopefully lionhead makes a similar model.

[OC_MurphysLaw]

Great news...kinda following the Killer Instinct model which I love.

[Convas]

Yup! Fable Legends, Happy Wars, and Killer Instinct will all a very happy F2P marriage make.

[Qrphe]

PC version it is then

[LAWSON72]

If it cost money you would have bought it on Xbone?

[Qrphe]

Yes, I only end up buying full retail games on consoles. I've never spent more than $10 on any PC game ever.

[Antifan]

AAA xbox exclusive lol

[SonyOnly4]

Free to play as in free online there will still be a retail copy to my understanding just like Elder Scrolls online and Deep Down this is good if your interested in the game I guess when they announced it for PC It forced Microsoft to go free to play otherwise Xbox owners would feel second class having to pay for online while PC Gamers play free.

[SharnOfTheDEAD]

Shame.... Fable series should have met it's true potential this gen

[LAWSON72]

I had no idea this spinoff would end the whole franchise for the rest of the gen. If Fable was to take advantage of next gen they are best to wait and take their time because so far nothing other than visuals are that impressive with this next gen hardware.

[Yaay4me]

I dont have a problem with free to play, but Fable is supposed to be a different kind of game. This is kind of dissapointing.

[strickers]

I read that as" Fable Legends will be as bad as it looks so far".

[N4GJD]

With all the ridiculous hate this 'spin-off' title has been receiving; this may save an otherwise very interesting game.

[TheOnlyMastrx]

Game seems interesting, and I enjoyed Fable 1-3, just not sure about this one now, kind of like the one for Kinect I guess I will have to experience it first hand and decide on it then.

[Tedakin]

Never played or cared about Fable. I'll actually try this now if only for 10 minutes.

[NeoGamer232]

As long as I have a pay option I am fine with it... And just like Killer Instinct it does seem to have a pay once option.

MS just keeps bringing it...

Windows 10/X1 integration, DX12 news, HoloLens, continued OS feature adds/updates, Forza Motorsports 5, Neverwinter at end of March, continued updates, Screamride seems to be a pleasant surprise, and now Fable Legends is F2P... So much for MS not having any games and gaming news in the January - Spring timeframe. They are killing it and have been since the man named Phil took over!

[BillytheBarbarian]

Well, just like other franchises I loved, I'll be skipping this trash.

I'd love to see one new game come out with no strings attached. Just one. No ftp, dlc, season pass, day one patch, or other type of cash grab. Just sell me fable 4 for $60 and that would be great. Pffft. Fuck this generation.

Star wars the old republic is awesome too...pffft. I'll take Kotor3 for $60 instead please...nope.

Hoping for a crash to come. People need to stop buying half ass games.

[Moldiver]

Thats an aweful lot of presumption for a game that

A) Is not out yet, and...

B) You have not played.

Dont jump the gun just yet. Its also free to play, so you can judge for yourself without paying a penny. Hardly something to cry over.

[RoseSapphire]

F2P?

A Fable game I'll actually try.

[Meltic]

hmm free 2 play. Something is wrong here. Why not an Epic storyline for fable ?

[Moldiver]

Its not fable 4. its fable legends. The single player story driven experience will be saved for a proper fable sequel. This is not a sequel.

[hazelamy]

ms doing, it sounds like, free to play the right way?
whoda thunk it?

although you'll probably still need a gold sub on X1.

[beereal360]

Xbox is keeps getting better. I traded my ps4 after I tried 1886 and I couldn't be happier

[jay2]

very dissapointed by this. and they rotate and u can't play more of the game unless you them ffs :@

[mhunterjr]

You can continue to play the game without buying anything. Did you read the article?

The free characters rotate every few weeks. If you don't own any characters, you continue to play with the rotational characters. Your progress is saved for each character, even if you don't own them... When a particular comes back in rotation, you continue your progress with that character. Or you can use XP to purchase a character permanently.

It works exactly like LoL...