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Fable Guru Peter Molyneux Leaving Lionhead and Microsoft

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He's been known as perhaps the greatest optimist the gaming industry has ever seen, and now Peter Molyneux is moving on to greener pastures.

He recently spoke to Kotaku where he revealed that is leaving Lionhead, the studio he founded  in 1997, and in turn, will no longer be in the Microsoft family, which bought the company in 2006. Lionhead and Molyneux were responsible for the classic Black and White and Fable franchises, but now the founder has said that the Kinect on-the-rails shooter, Fable: The Journey, would be his last venture. Here's part of his statement:

"It is with mixed emotions that I made the decision to leave Microsoft and Lionhead Studios, the company that I co-founded in 1997, at the conclusion of development of Fable: The Journey."

"I remain extremely passionate and proud of the people, products and experiences that we created, from Black & White to Fable to our pioneering work with Milo and Kate for the Kinect platform. However, I felt the time was right to pursue a new independent venture."

The new independent venture would be a company called 22 Cans, established by former Lionhead CTO Tim Rance.

Molyneux's legacy is one of big promises that didn't always quite live up to his own hype. Black and White was fantastic, Fable was a good start and Fable 2 improved on its predecessor. Fable 3 took several steps back, and I famously called it an "embarrassment to video games." If you Google the game, that article remains in the top three search results, and I still receive comments on it daily.

Molyneux would famously promise that you could do ANYthing in his games, as he was one of the first to really expand on the moral choice system  that now pervades most titles. But his Fable series in particular ended up being more limited in scope and more linear than what he promised, and I would almost say his "do anything" philosophy was realized not in his own games, but rather later in a title like Skyrim.

That isn't to say the man doesn't have good ideas and isn't a powerful force in the industry. This is hardly his obituary, and perhaps freeing himself from the obligation of making half-hearted Kinect games for Microsoft will allow him to get back to his roots and breathe life into more unique titles.