Character based multiplayer games are big business. League of Legends probably started it all. The game is completely free to play, you’re given a subset of characters on a rotation – if you find a character you like, you can pick it up for a micro transaction. You can buy skins for it too. Not a single aspect of LoL is pay2win.
Killer Instinct also uses this model. You can enjoy the full game, online play etc, for the rock bottom price of £0.00 – you’re just locked out of the full character roster.
Lionhead have just announced via a major outlet that Fable Legends too will utilize this model.
The report states that the game will ship with a full story’s worth of content – although its unknown exactly how much content that constitutes. The game will be updated for free with episodic content and new characters on rotation. Characters you do play will not be lost when the rotation ends, you’ll retain your equipment and XP if you want to wait for them to come back to the free model – but you can unlock them for permanent use either using in-game money accrued via normal play means, or via a micro transaction. The same works for ‘villain’ type monsters.
This is pretty much the model I’ve recommended Evolve use. I’m still reviewing Evolve to determine whether or not it is worth its “paymium” model (an odious term I’ve only today become aware of) – but early signs are not good. Fable Legends, like Killer Instinct and Project Spark utilize a much friendlier model. You can try the game for free, if you enjoy it, pay for piece-meal chunks of it, or all content at a discount.
Fable Legends will also feature cross play between PC and Xbox One, giving it the ‘scale’ it needs to make the model work. Considering Killer Instinct is still receiving masses of content updates, I’d hazard that the model works well for that game – although like Lionhead’s John Needham notes, the model is risky – what if nobody likes Fable?: “We’re taking on a lot of risk, I accept that and so does Microsoft, but there’s no risk for you, as a player.”
We’ve reached out to Lionhead to comment further on their plans for Fable Legends, but in the meanwhile – hit the comments and let’s discuss this latest development.
^Jez (@MSFTY)
Jez C (MSFTY) is a games journalist, Executive Editor at Windows Central. They contributed 39 articles to ICXM in 2015, focused on game reviews, Windows and PC, and Xbox news: now leads Xbox coverage at Future plc’s Windows Central as Executive Editor.