Fable 2 online co-op should be available at launch

Fable 2 went gold back on the 22nd of September, but a few days after that Lionhead reported that the online co-op mode still needed to be tweaked and would not be available at launch. The developers said they hoped to have a patch ready within a week or so of the game being available in stores.

It was also stated that the player would still be able to see their friends’ Albion orbs, meaning players could still chat and trade with each other, though other players would not be able to team up until the patch has been installed.

It seems that those guys and gals at Lionhead have been working their butts off, as they announced yesterday that they’ve completed the work that needs to be done for the patch to be available on the release date.

“It’s still not 100 percent at the moment. It’s in certification. They are checking to make sure everything is OK,” Lionhead boss Peter Molyneux said. “We have never had anything fail certification before so that’s a good sign. I’m super, super hopeful. That was our plan to make it a day one patch.”

“The problem is when you are dealing with multiplayer very often, and especially this was the case with Fable, the whole of the single player experience has to work perfectly,” he said. “Because if you link two single player experiences up and anything goes wrong than the games just fall out of sync.”

“That’s why you need this extra bit of time because you need to finish the whole of the game. This is actually something we did on the PC for years. You always did a patch, so it was very accepted that you went back home and you loaded the game up and it was patched.”

Although this may come as good news to some, those who love ranting about the trend for game developers to “release now, patch later” on consoles are said to be disappointed at the loss of an opportunity to complain.