Lionhead, a name that outweighs most other names in the industry. Successor to Bullfrog. A flawless reputation. What happened?
Why is it suffering the same fate as Rare? Is Microsoft to blame?
Lionhead is one of Microsoft's most important assets. Their reputation being ruined by their recent games (Fable 2 and Fable 3). Some of you old school gamers might recall a studio named Bullfrog(Populous, Syndicate and Dungeon Keeper). Lionhead is basically Bullfrog in a reincarnated form. Some might argue that Bullfrog was destroyed by the "evil" nature of EA, but that could be said about any closed studio. The truth is that it was merged with EA UK, so it's still around.
Let's Start with Peter Molyneux. A dreamer, a man with influence. The British equivalent to Shigeru Miyamoto. No one can pretend to know whats on his mind. His brain is probably a wonderland where realities and dreams coexist. But, I never explained who he is and I don't need to. If anything is wrong with Lionhead, which I assure you there is, Molyneux has something to do with. They say the mind is the first to go, which could explain the source of the problem. The very thing that gave life to his projects, cant even give life to himself. This is a theory of course, so please put all your worry's to the side.
Perhaps's Simon Carter leaving has something with it. He was their technical director, and a good one too. He's been with them since the Bullfrog days. Discussing his relationship with Lionhead, Carter noted, "The decision to leave Lionhead was a very difficult one.". Why would it have been difficult? Maybe he's attached to Lionhead, or maybe he doesn't want to upset old Molyneux. We could a thousand questions, with no answer in sight.
It could be Microsoft! Blaming corporations seems to be all the rage these days, and Microsoft is a corporation. They could be milking all the creativity from Lionhead for money. But, maybe Lionhead really wants an on-rail Fable shooter for Kinect. For whatever reason they might really want to make the games they want, whether bad or good.
It's happened to Rare, and now Lionhead. Who's next to fall from grace. My bet's on Bioware for several reasons, but that's for another time same place. What do you think happened to Lionhead? Who's next?
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Yeah its a real pity. So much potentiel and better ways to use Lionhead rather than just sticking to to the Fable franchise. Not saying that Fable sucks, on the contrary they always score 80+ but how can you explain that in 6 years on Xbox 360 all they could do was Fable and now an on rail Kinect game ??
They better be working on a new IP for the NextBox otherwise yeah might as well be the next Rare.
As for Bioware lets see what they do with DA3, we'll see more clearly if they still have that je ne sais quoi.