Bullfrog and Lionhead Studios co-founder Peter Molyneux today revealed that he will leave Microsoft and Lionhead once development of
Fable: The Journey is complete.
The industry veteran first rose to games industry fame from his work on a string of successful Bullfrog titles such as
Dungeon Keeper and
Populous. He then left Bullfrog in 1997 to co-found Lionhead, and went on to create the iconic
Black & White and
Fable franchises.
Lionhead was acquired by Microsoft in 2006, at which point it focused on development of games for the Xbox 360. Molyneux is currently the head at Lionhead, and creative head at Microsoft Studios Europe.
However, in a statement to Kotaku today,
he explained, "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."
He continued, "I remain extremely passionate and proud of the people, products and experiences that we created, from
lack & 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."
Microsoft said in a statement that it wishes Molyneux "the best of luck in his future endeavors," and called him "one of our most passionate and influential developers for the Xbox 360 platform."
Molyneux revealed via Twitter that his next venture is a new games company called 22 Cans, which was recently established by former Lionhead chief technical officer Tim Rance. "Now for something really amazing, scary and brave, a new company called 22 Cans," he tweeted.
