Albion goes zany in Lionhead's newly announced four-player-coop title for Xbox LIVE arcade.

Some of you may remember a mysterious countdown which appeared on the Lionhead website in late February. Not many clues were given at the time, save what seemed to be a large red sewing button. Now, about a week later, we know what all the fuss was about. The ticker has reached zero, and Lionhead has announced a new game called Fable Heroes to be released for Xbox LIVE Arcade later this year.

Fable Heroes looks to be a cartoony, action-adventure multiplayer title, featuring a slew of hack-and-slash, boss bashing, and minigame sequences to keep players occupied. It's also a coop title, but more of the "frienemy" sort, letting players team up to accomplish a larger goal, while secretly plotting to rob all the rewards for themselves. Here's the official description from the Lionhead website:

Fable Heroes on Xbox LIVE Arcade is an action-packed hack-and-slash adventure set in the Fable universe, it is a fresh spin on the franchise, taking playful competition to the next level with four player co-op, time trials and leaderboards on Xbox LIVE. In Fable Heroes players work together to defeat enemies while also competing with each other to collect gold coins, which will level up their character and unlock unique items in Fable: The Journey when it launches later this year.

Checking out some of the footage and screenshots, it looks like players will control what the game calls "puppets" (basically micro-sized, avatar-esque versions of some the franchise's most memorable characters) to fight off baddies and compete in a series of minigame challenges. There's one screenshot of what looks an awful lot like some sort of Mario Party board game, and another of four players racing mine carts down what's hopefully an unpopulated shaft.

While Heroes will provide money and items to players of Fable: The Journey, it's also a complete, standalone title, unlike the previous lead-ins Fable: Kingmaker and Fable: Coin Golf. So far, we haven't been told a specific release date, but with Fable: The Journey coming on September 4th, we can probably expect to see Heroes a good deal beforehand.