Games that never escaped E3

First announced at Gamescom in 2013, Fable Legends made its gameplay debut during Microsoft’s press conference at E3 2014 – and it couldn’t be further from what series fans were expecting. Rather than using the power of the Xbox One and Microsoft’s cloud servers to create a fully-realized, next-gen version of Albion, Fable Legends scaled way back, transforming the action-RPG into a condensed four-on-one multiplayer game.

Fable Legends went into closed beta later that year, and by all accounts the game was fine, but there was zero excitement behind it, from both fans and its own publisher. It wasn’t a proper Fable sequel, series creator Molyneux was long gone from Lionhead, and other four-on-one multiplayer games were either cancelled outright (like Bioware’s Shadow Realms), or landed flat on their face (like Turtle Rock’s Evolve). Originally meant to release during Microsoft’s ‘greatest games lineup in Xbox history’ in 2015, Fable Legends was pushed to 2016, with an open beta to hit early this year. Unfortunately, Microsoft shut down Lionhead Studios, cancelled development in March, and turned off the game’s servers in April.