Lionhead Studios has announced that Fable Legends, its upcoming co-op title for the Xbox One and PC, will be free-to-play and supported by microtransactions. For some players this is exciting news, but for others the “free-to-play” label has turned into a red flag signifying money hungry studios.

The Microsoft-owned Lionhead Studios was formerly led by the notorious hype machine Peter Molyneux, but now it is run under the direction of John Needham, formerly the CFO of Sony Online Entertainment (now Daybreak Game Company) and later the CEO of Cryptic Studios and Gazillion Entertainment.

Like Riot Games’ esports powerhouse League of Legends, Fable Legends (no relation) will rotate out the available free-to-play heroes while giving players the option to unlock them permanently by paying for them with either the in-game currency or with real money.

“No denying the similarities” to League of Legends

Other comparisons have been drawn between the two games, and Needham admits that League of Legends did have an influence on the new Fable title.

“There’s no denying the similarities there,” Needham told Eurogamer. “We all play League of Legends. I’ve spent a good year-and-a-half of my life hard playing League of Legends and love it. So there’s no denying that was the big inspiration of ours.”

One big difference between the two games is the 4v1 combat of Fable Legends, which pitches a team of heroes against a powerful villain.

Few free-to-play games manage to use the model well, but the handful that do are incredibly lucrative for their publishers, including Blizzard Entertainment’s Hearthstone, which gained tens of millions of players in its first year. While some gamers are wary of free-to-play titles, others say that the new model for Fable Legends will make them more likely to try it out.

“Well, now I’ll actually play the game,” said one Reddit user. “Wasn’t willing to shell out the money to buy a copy, but if its free to play I’ll def check it out.”

Needham notes that Lionhead will monitor how the new model affects players in the current beta version, saying, “We’re already starting an open dialogue with our beta community on the strengths of the game. That will extend out when we start introducing how we’re going to do monetisation in the game to that conversation in beta. We’ll have a transparent dialogue with our community.”

Image credit: Lionhead Studios (c)