Although Microsoft initially promised that Fable Legends would arrive in the fall of 2015, fall has come and gone and there's still no word on the game.

However, Game Informer recently asked Microsoft about the status of the title, and got a very terse answer: the company may release new details about it in the next few weeks. However, with fall gone and winter arriving, it's a sure bet that Fable Legends won't arrive anytime this year.

What's most surprising is that the game hasn't even seen an open beta yet this year, and it doesn't look like that might happen until 2016.

"As a service-based title in closed beta, we're always working to make sure that when we open Fable Legends to everyone, that it's a great gameplay experience," a Microsoft representative told Game Informer via email. "We are continuing to expand our closed beta and will have more details to share in the coming weeks, so stay tuned!"

It's been several years since Microsoft announced Fable Legends, an Xbox One exclusive and 4v1 multiplayer game, way back in 2013. At the time, the company released a cinematic trailer with a voiceover by Harry Potter's Michael Gambon. The company revealed gameplay in 2014 and opened up a closed beta later that year.

Earlier this year, Microsoft and its Fable Legends partner Lionhead Studios announced that not only was the game free-to-play, but that the game would also get a release on PC for Windows 10 and will feature cross-platform play for PC and Xbox One users.

"The honest answer is a really long beta," said Lionhead creative director David Eckelberry to Kotaku in February. "There's a lot of new stuff for us both in game design and technologically: cross-platform, Windows 10, all of the networking we have to do is mostly new to us. We run into game-crashing bugs frequently in our beta. But we want to find them NOW, so we have time to fix them... a bad launch week sticks with you forever. Nobody ever forgets - and they shouldn't, I think fans are right not to forget it. They might forgive it... but I don't blame fans for saying 'dude, you screwed this up.' I don't want to be in that place."

Patience is a virtue, at least for gamers waiting to get their hands on Fable Legends: now all they can do is wait for Microsoft to announce something before the end of the year.