Well, this is surprising.
The Fable Legends website announced today that the upcoming 4-vs-1 action role-playing game will be free-to-play. Players can use real money to buy new characters, customization options, and in-game items. Fable Legends will also be playable cross-platform on Xbox One and PC.
Free-to-play games are hardly new, but it is unusual to see a triple-A console franchise like Fable enter that market. Most had assumed that Fable Legends would be a $60 retail game, similar to Evolve, another 4-vs-1 asymmetrical multiplayer title that came out earlier this month.
However, some of the backlash against Evolve may have swayed the people behind Fable Legends. Despite its $60 price, Evolve still charges players for new characters and skins, which has caused plenty of complaining. Fable Legends’ free-to-play plan is similar to PC hit League of Legends, which has a weekly rotation of free heroes while letting players buy new characters individually to own forever.
Fable Legends is coming out later in 2015.