The Xbox One and Windows 10 exclusive Fable Legends will be using the free-to-play model, announces Lionhead Studios. That means chums can play the four-heroes-versus-one-villain game at no cost.
Unless, that is, you want to deck your heroes out. Fable Legends will have chests to be found while questing, and silver coins are earned to buy them back in town, or you could spend some real cheese.
The possible trouble lies in exactly what you get in those chests, which do include weapons and armour. The major grumble with the free-to-play model is it entering that dangerous pay-to-win territory, but game director David Eckelberry from Lionhead says emphasis is on ‘class roles over hero levels’.
”We’re not looking at an unbalanced game, regardless of how you got the treasure,” Eckelberry tells Eurogamer. ”So whether you bought it to get the different outfits and looks and stats, or you’ve earned it by just going up to the treasure chest and opening it, it’s not going to be game-breaking in either sense.”
Items are tied to the current hero level so mega powerful gear can’t be equipped on snot-nose punks just starting out, and there’ll be no buying items during the quests themselves. Free-to-play can be a force for good but it arguably fits certain games and genres better than others.
”There are free-to-play games like World of Tanks out there that are very much a pay-to-win kind of experience,” he continued. ”For me the better ones for the customers are the ones where you get to enjoy all of the content without paying money. And then you pay if you want to.”
Will this adoption of free-to-play effect game design when it comes to progression pacing? Yes it will, and that’s why many are turned off by it because suddenly drop rates are that much lower and, wouldn’t you know, suddenly throwing actual money at the screen could just buy it or increase your chances.
”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,” said boss John Needham.
Fable Legends releases on PC and Xbox One in 2015.
