A few months back now the gaming world was shocked by the news that Microsoft had decided to close down the game studio behind the beloved Fable franchise, Lionhead Studios, and cancel the latest game in the series, Fable Legends.

But, as it turns out, Legends was not the only project that was being worked on by Lionhead. A much smaller unannounced game titled Fable Fortune was also being developed. But instead of just tossing it in the garbage, as appears to be the fate of Legends, Microsoft granted permission to those who were developing it to continue working on it under their own new studio, Flaming Fowl Studios. To gather the funds for what could be the last Fable game we see in a long time, they’re looking to fans on Kickstarter. Continue below for more info and to see their pitch video, as well as some gameplay videos.

Well then…did not see this one coming.

Microsoft Studios has announced that Fable Legends, the latest title in Lionhead Studios’ Fable game series that’s been in the works for a few years now, has been canceled, and that Lionhead itself might get shut down.

You can read the full announcement below.

It’s already been a couple of years now—believe it or not—since we first found out that Lionhead Studios, developer of the hit Fable video game series, was focusing all of their efforts on a co-op prequel titled Fable Legends that we eventually would find out is a four-vs-one free-to-play game instead of the expected Fable IV.

The game is still well on its way, and has been in a closed beta for a while now, collecting valuable feedback from those invited to play to use in polishing what will become the final product. An open beta of the game where any and all who wanted to test it out could do just that has been in the plans as well, but today comes word that anyone waiting for that opportunity will have to wait a little bit longer as the open beta has been pushed back to spring of 2016. You can read the announcement from Lionhead and see a video talking about their decision below.

One year ago we found ourselves pondering the future of the Fable franchise, knowing that the type of game die hard fans of the series love and expect had been thrown out the window in order to jump on the current mess of a gaming trend bandwagon and make a co-op four vs. one type of game instead.

The big question then was, would this new game still cost what a normal game costs or would it also embrace other unpopular things such as monthly subscription fees or microtransactions? Now we have an answer. The good news is that Fable Legends will not have a monthly subscription fee like The Elder Scrolls Online had before the recent decision to drop it. In fact, it won’t have any fees. The game will be free to play…with the option for in-game purchases of course.

You can see details about what this means and where you can play, and also see a video of the announcement below.

E3 2014 is officially underway, and plenty of games have already been shown.

One highly anticipated upcoming game that was announced back in August of last year is Fable Legends. The game comes in place of the once expected Fable IV, which Lionhead Studios has said is not currently being worked on, and is built around co-op gaming, which has many fans of the series differing in their levels of excitement.

The first gameplay demo for Fable Legends was presented today, and you can watch it as well as a trailer below.