9 Amazing Video Game Developers Killed Off By Their Publishers
5. Lionhead Studios
Founded: 1996
Defunct: 2016
What happened: A lacklustre $75 million project that never came to be is what sunk Lionhead's ship.
Following four years of sleepless nights, delays, bug fixes and closed betas, Microsoft sent human resources through the doors of Lionhead's Guildford headquarters to break two big bulletins: that Fable Legends was being cancelled and that Lionhead was to be shut down for good.
The news came as a shock for everyone, employee and public bystander alike, but how did it reach that point of no return in the first place? Eurogamer's posthumous article featuring interviews with several former employees revealed that nobody within Lionhead ever really wanted to make Fable Legends, but Fable 4.
Microsoft had refused a pitch for the latter - which was to adopt a Victorian theme - in favour of having the crew pursue a project that would take advantage of the 'games as a service' model. Something Lionhead had no experience with.
In other words, had Microsoft simply allowed Lionhead to do what it did best, we could have been playing Fable 4 right now, rather than mourning its death. Sad.