From the Lion's den... (Tuesday, 9th May 2006)

As most of you will probably know, we were acquired by Microsoft Game Studios in early April. During the last few weeks we've seen many visitors from Redmond, Washington in Guildford, one of them being Peter Moore. I'm not going to go into the details or outcome of all these visits and the meetings that came with it. However, I would like to mention that I think it's a great thing to happen to Lionhead, our games are only going to get better with this, as we are able to focus on what we do best and that is making them. And I'm getting a free Xbox 360 so I'll see you all on Live!

As some of you might be aware there is currently at least one game in development at Lionhead. After the three games we released last year, the time was right to start looking at new ideas and that's exactly what has happened.

The first game, which has only recently been announced, Fable 2, is starting to look really awesome. The team has been making good progress and I've finally gotten around to reading the whole design document; it's a huge beast. Keeping this a secret hasn't been easy; we've all seen the press leaks around a Halo 3 and Forza 2 on the internet and we were dreading the moment the announcement of Fable 2 would have leaked out. By now I hope most of you have seen the teaser trailer (if not I strongly recommend visiting www.fable2.com) which gives you a first idea of what to expect. We've seen some questions being raised about it, but the trailer is not ingame, it is a representation of what we believe the final game will look like, and because we are using ingame assets for the trailer we can actually say that with confidence. In the past we've also been known for announcing our games too early and revealing too many of its (planned) features and functionality. Peter especially tends to talk too openly about the development process which has not always been appreciated by the public.

The really exciting thing about this is that we're taking a slightly different approach now. Sure, we'll still share as much information about Fable 2 with the wider gaming community as we can, but only when the time is right. And that's not now. In the meantime feel free to join the Lionhead community and explore our forums, as I'm sure there is a lot to talk about and it also allows you to talk directly to the Lionhead developers.

Normally I would have gone to E3 this year but I got told four hours before my plane was about to depart, that sadly my passport didn't have the required six months left on it. So my trip was cancelled as quickly as it was confirmed. Very disappointing but I've got no one but myself to blame. There's always next year to look forward to!

The Xbox 360 is a strong next-gen platform and with Microsoft truly understanding what "community spirit" means (I'm thinking about Xbox Live!, GamerCard and other nifty features) I can't help but feel like a kid in a candy store. Their opening speech at E3 2005 only reinforced that understanding. They are going to give us more hard- and software goodies during E3, that goes without saying, but just how cool or (dare I say) revolutionary are these things going to be? We're starting to see and read what the other two next-gen platform holders Nintendo (I need a Wii) and Sony (wonky show that was!) are up to; one would think that it's good to be a gamer in the year 2006. There's no doubt 2007 will even be better. We've also got this new group at Lionhead that's called CTG, or Central Technology Group. These are the guys that whack out wicked pieces of technology that we all would love to show you. This then can be used in one or all of our games by using CONCRETE - it's actually been an idea for quite a while, but if you think about The Room for example and then think about the new games, well, they are really doing some magical stuff here. It's far too complicated for me to understand all those technicalities or how it all works, but luckily we've got so many talented programmers and engineers here!

This is what CTG does, most developers show you a face, we show you a hand to give you an idea of "the magic"!

Sam's out. For now!

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