- Name
- Lionhead Studios Ltd.
- Abbreviation
- Founded
- 1 January 1997
- Location
- Guildford,Surrey,England
- Website
- http://www.lionhead.com/
- Aliases
Lionhead Studios Ltd.
Guildford,Surrey,England
Lionhead Studios was a British developer studio founded by industry legend Peter Molyneux. They focus on innovation in God games, management simulators and RPGs. Their first title was released in 2001, called Black & White. The company was formed with people from Bullfrog Productions.
Company Images Related Pages
Overview
The Lionhead building.
Lionhead Studios was founded by designer legend Peter Molyneux (Person) as well as Mark Webley (Person), Tim Rance (Person) and Steve Jackson (Person) (of Games Workshop fame) in 1997 after leaving Bullfrog Productions to pursue their dreams of innovation in video games. It was clearly set up to resemble the old school Bullfrog days that were long gone.
The company was based in Guildford, Surrey in England, United Kingdom but was for a long time a "satellite" based studio branching out to Big Blue Box and other smaller studios for development. But in 2004 the smaller studios were integrated into the main foundation of Lionhead and they are now working as a collective group. Towards the end of that same year Lionhead ran into alot of financial trouble. They were, up until that point, a privately owned company but after overstepping their budget on several projects (Black andamp;amp;amp; White 2, The Movies (Game) and more) a couple of investors (Ingenious Ventures, IDG VE) made big investments in the studio.
The two overdeveloped games have not reached great sales even to this day and at
Lionhead entrance.
the time of their release it looked pretty dark for Lionhead as an independent studio.
In 2006 the company was acquired by Microsoft and Lionhead's independence was ended. The studio developed for Xbox 360 with their big holiday 2008 title Fable II as their first game. Their latest released game was Fable Anniversary, released in 2014.
In April 2016, Lionhead Studios was closed by Microsoft and development on Fable Legends was cancelled. Former Lionhead developers would set up companies such as Media Molecule (Company), 22Cans (Company), PixelCount Studios (Company) and Two Point Studios (Company).
Lionhead and Artificial Intelligence
Reception area with trophies.
The company takes pride in coming up with cutting edge A.I. solutions and in 2001, the studio won several awards for "Best A.I in Any Computer Game" with Black andamp;amp;amp; White and it has been nominated for Guinness Book of Records for "Best AI in Any Game".
The company was constantly evolving their AI and according to people working with the A.I their goal was to achieve social intelligence, real conversations and versatile characters you can truly believe in. With Fable II (Game) they hope to create a believable world where the people that inhabits it reacts to what happens around them in ways never seen before. The player should also be able to interact with the A.I. and make people change their minds about what is happening.
Design visions
Black & White (2001)
Combined with their will to constantly invent new mechanics that has never been seen in games before or creating interface polish that makes playing a game much smoother, makes Lionhead Studios a development studio unlike any other. Even if the results are not always huge mainstream successes they continue to push onwards with the vision that Peter set out when he founded the company. According to Peter himself this is the vision that the company will take to its grave.
When asked about where he gets his inspiration and how he wants to create games, Peter Molyneux answered:
"Doing Black & White made me realize something. I don’t think there’s one perfect game in me, and that everything I do is striving to create it. I think there are a lot of different, games which are as good as Lionhead and I can make them. None are perfect because in this world you can’t write a perfect game. Many of the similarities in these games are like those you’ll see in work by one film maker or hear in the work of one recording artist. If we find lovely ideas, like mana, we’ll use them whenever we need to. We won’t shoehorn them in because people expect them. The old adage is true. Games, like everything creative, is one per cent inspiration and ninety-nine per cent perspiration."
Design Diaries
Inside Lionhead
The company has released video diaries from the production of Fable II (Game), called "Inside Lionhead" which can be found here.
There is also a page dedicated to webcams set up around the office. They can be found here.
Games
| Title | Publisher | Release Year |
|---|---|---|
| Black andamp;amp;amp; White | Electronic Arts (Company) | 2001 |
| Black andamp;amp;amp; White: Creature Isle | Electronic Arts (Company) | 2002 |
| Fable (Game) | Microsoft Studios | 2004 |
| Fable: The Lost Chapters | Microsoft Studios | 2005 |
| Black andamp;amp;amp; White 2 | Electronic Arts (Company) | 2005 |
| The Movies (Game) | Activision (Company) | 2005 |
| Black andamp;amp;amp; White 2: Battle of the Gods | Electronic Arts (Company) | 2006 |
| The Movies: Stunts andamp;amp;amp; Effects | Activision (Company) | 2006 |
| Fable II Pub Games (Game) (co-developed with Carbonated Games (Company)) | Microsoft Studios | 2008 |
| Fable II (Game) | Microsoft Studios | 2008 |
| Fable III (Game) | Microsoft Studios | 2010 |
| Fable: Coin Golf (co-developed with Ideaworks Game Studio (Company)) | Microsoft Studios | 2011 |
| Fable Heroes (Game) | Microsoft Studios | 2012 |
| Microsoft Studios | 2012 | |
| Microsoft Studios | 2014 | |
| Microsoft Studios | 2014 |
Fun Facts
- 12 percent of Lionhead Studios have goatees .
- 28.5 percent wear glasses .
- 17 percent have shaved heads .
- 10 percent of the guys have shoulder length (or longer) hair.
- The company was named after a dead hamster owned by Mark Webley.
- Peter Molyneux is on the list of available coaches in Major League Baseball 2K7 (Game).
Developed Games
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Black & White (Game)
A highly ambitious real-time strategy game, Black & White casts players in the role of a newborn god responsible for cultivating a loyal following of human worshipers and interacting with a sophisticated artificial intelligence in the shape of a large anthropomorphic animal.
Black & White 2: Battle of the Gods (Game)
Battle of the Gods constitutes the final edition in Lionhead Studios' Black and White franchise, an overhead perspective city sim-type game in which the player plays the role of a god summoned by his people to aid them in a time of crisis.
The Movies: Stunts & Effects (Game)
Stunts & Effects is the expansion to The Movies and adds a variety of flashy movie-making abilities to the original game.
Milo and Kate (Game)
Peter Molyneux's cancelled Kinect-based project. It features a young boy who interacts with the player by recognizing facial features and the tone of the player's voice.
Fable IV (Game)
During E3 2011, Peter Molyneux confirmed the existence of Fable IV by discussing how Fable: Journey fits within the series chronologically.
Published Games
View all published gamesNo games found