BY AMIT BARAN ROY | The shocking and unexpected by Microsoft today has broken the hearts of many fans. Their decision to cancel the development of Fable Legends and propose the closure of Lionhead Studios went viral on the Internet this morning. Now that the game is cancelled, Lionhead has revealed the exact details on the game’s closed beta and how long it continues.

According to the Lionhead Studios , if you are already a part of the Beta, you can continue to play the Beta till 15:00 GMT on Wednesday, April 13, 2016. Only existing players are allowed to continue with the game. After April 13, the game’s servers will be shut down and the game will be no longer playable.

Moreover, they have also stated that the ability to purchase gold from the in-game bank will be disabled with immediate effect. All Beta players who have already purchased in-game gold will receive a full refund. Further information on the refund scheme will be sent via e-mail to all players within next 7 days.

Earlier this morning, Microsoft had announced the cancellation of the game ‘Fable Legends’ which was in development by Lionhead Studios. The co-operative action role playing game was scheduled to be launched in 2016 for both Windows and Xbox One. The game involved four heroes and a villain with unique abilities for the heroes to complete their quests. Microsoft had great hopes for the free-to-play game, as the company said the title had the potential live for 5 to 10 years, with regular content coming to keep it fresh. There is also the proposal for the closure of the Lionhead Studios entirely. While it is still not confirmed, but it is almost certain as these things are not loosely said. This delay period can buy some time for the affected employees to look for new jobs.

Apart from this, Microsoft has also permanently suspended the development of Project Knoxville which was in development by Press Play Studios. Not only this, the Press Play Studios which was famous for its Kalimba and Max: The Curse of Brotherhood titles got dissolved too. All these news are pretty disturbing but Microsoft claims that they want to shift the focus of their workforce in developing games that fans want to play. Also, they want to enhance the cross platform play between the PC and Xbox console versions of the games that could engage more players. While today isn’t a very good day for many fans, we do really hope that the upcoming AAA titles by Microsoft can revive the enthusiasm among the fans this Spring.