Sit back.
Close your eyes.
Let me tell you a story.

It’s 2003. I’ve just moved to Seattle. I have no friends. I have a new laptop. Some bad things have happened to prompt this move, but some good things, as well. This move is an escape, as well as a proclamation of independence. This move was also triggered by one of the world’s stupidest reasons (romance). I have very little to do in my new life. My apartment has scarce furniture and I don’t have cable tv. I have made the move with a total of 3 dvds. I am not in Seattle proper, so I cannot just wander on down to a coffee shop and hang out and hope to make friends. I am, in fact, in one of the shittiest neighborhoods I could possibly have seated myself in.

Gaming is not a new concept to me. I have had several consoles in my life at this point, but I do not currently own one (this will be fairly quickly remedied, do not fear). What I do have is a machine that is capable of playing games, and a partner who guides me toward the vast world of computer games. I’m admittedly a console girl, always have been, always will be. I played very early games on PC such as Reader Rabbit, Oregon Trail, Prince of Persia, Sim City… then Duke Nukem and Doom. But as soon as I got my grubby hands on a console, that was it for me. I was sold. So I was not in the know when it came to what I could now play on my laptop. I was skeptical at best when said partner pointed me toward a game called Black and White.

I was pretty sold when I saw the opening screen, though. That Lionhead logo that you could fuck around with while the game was loading. I got into the game right away, as well. How could I not? You get to choose what kind of god you’re going to be. What narcissistic dictator-in-training isn’t going to gravitate toward this idea? In seriousness, though, everything about this game was wonderful. It had great graphics, it had a fantastic story, it had everything. PLUS, it was helping me kill hours of time. And, oh, I had so much time. Not working and having no friends will do that to you.

The truth, though, is that as soon as I had a console in my house, I let the game fall to the wayside. To this day I haven’t played it to completion, which is abnormal for me and the way that I play. If they were to port it, hell yeah I would play the shit out of it. I’d probably never leave my house again. Kind of like I’m doing with Fallout 4 (Hi, 85+ hours and 10% through the main story, how are you?).

However, little did I know, that it wasn’t to be my last encounter with Lionhead. I didn’t put much thought into studios back then, I didn’t have favorites, and I didn’t have studio names that I avoided like the plague, as I do now. The name Lionhead slipped out of my head without much effort, and I concentrated on what was now in front of me, and more my style. That wonderful controller. The console family grew more, with an xbox joining in. This new technology pulled me firmly away from my Playstation ways. For at least one thing, it was better that way. I wouldn’t have experienced any more Lionhead if I’d stayed with Sony. But I digress. Unbeknownst to me, as I was saying, Lionhead was soon back in my life.

2004 rolled around, and with it came Fable.

Let me preface. By now I’d started to become a regular at Gamestop. I had my favorite ones, and I knew which one to go to if I needed to find something obscure. I knew which store was going to have a midnight release, and which store was so infrequently visited by anyone, that they’d likely have the most popular games in stock tenfold. The young man at the register was talking about an upcoming game and I overheard. He happened to have his copy of GameInformer that talked about Project Ego becoming Fable. He let me glance over it in the short time I had before we completed our purchases.

I was hooked.

Hooked.

I went home and searched everywhere online for any tidbit I could dig up. Which wasn’t quite so easy in those days. I kept an eye out for more information every time we went to Gamestop. I was dying to know more. Nothing I found was enough for me, either. I eventually reached a point where I just couldn’t take it anymore, and I had to stop. I had to just wait for the game release. I knew that if I kept digging, I would burn myself out on it, or find too much and spoil myself, and I wouldn’t be so stoked for the game anymore.

Fable was the first game that I ever pre-ordered. It was also my first midnight release. I’d never wanted a game so bad in my life.

Release day was magic to me. I didn’t wait, I opened it in the car and devoured the cover art. I smelled the new smell of sealed plastic. As soon as I got home, it went into the console. I played for so long that I fell asleep on the couch. I was in love. Looking back, I’m quite glad that the game held up to my expectations. Experience has embittered me to the point that I do my best to have no expectations before playing a game, and I won’t even look too much into a new game before release if I really want to play it. Oh, ye olde days of innocence. How I long for thee.

When Fable: The Lost Chapters came out, I bought that too. Fable 2 had me buying the special edition – and then being monumentally let down when the extras were all canceled. Fable 3, Fable Anniversary, I jumped on them so fast that I was like a cartoon, with only my vague outline left in dust where I’d once been standing. This was the first franchise I adored. The first time I’d ever automatically boarded the train to Excitementville as soon as the name was mentioned. I didn’t care if anybody said anything bad about them. I didn’t care if anybody didn’t like them at all. I talked them up to anybody who would listen. I could play these games when I was sad, and feel an immediate increase in mood. I played these games at least 3 times each, back to back. There is, in fact, only one Fable game that I have never played and had no interest in, and that was the shitshow that was Fable: The Journey. I’ve even spent countless hours in Pub Games and Fable Heroes.

I’m not a fan of playing with other people, unless they’re friends of mine, but I was so on board with Fable Legends that I was a part of the beta group. I was so into it that I actually developed a liking for a particular hero, Malice. I did enjoy playing the villain as well, don’t get me wrong. But there’s something about Malice that sings to me. I was totally ready to devote time and money to this game, in a way that I’ve never been willing to do before.

It’s taken me a little bit of time to come to terms with the news that both Fable Legends and Lionhead Studios are going away. This is a huge impact for me and my gaming history. I’m losing a franchise that I’ve personally seen no ill from (discounting The Journey, of course). I know people will argue with me, but that’s the beauty thing about opinions. Shut the fuck up, and let me have mine. It’s weird to me to think about not having another Fable game to look forward to. Not just Fable Legends, but other potentials. What if there might have been a Fable 4?

At this point, for me at least, it doesn’t really matter if it was Microsoft mismanaging Lionhead, or if it was a choice by that studio, or if things just went fucking sideways. Fable is gone. Lionhead, the studio that has seen me through so much – from boredom to breakups, is gone. This is going to have a lasting impact, not just on the one franchise, but on a lot of people in the UK, as well as probably studios who had been thinking about selling to Microsoft. Or maybe even those who already have. Lionhead is not the only studio hit by this closure. I know that people are already speculating about the future of Xbox on the whole due to these sudden closures. My confusion is why Lionhead, a company that raked in awards for Fable up to and including 3, would be the ones hit by this. It would make more sense to me for Microsoft, instead, to back off and let Lionhead do what they do best. Make a really good RPG with a really good story. Lionhead knew what Fable fans wanted. And while fun, Fable Heroes was not a true Fable game. Fable: The Journey was … I don’t even want to talk about it. And Fable: Legends was way off track for everything we were used to up to this point. As far as I know, only hardcore franchise fans were even interested in it.

I’m sad, to be quite honest. I will never again know that pitter patter of my heart when a Fable game is announced.

RIP Fable. RIP Lionhead.

Closing your eyes for this story probably didn’t work out very well.