When it comes to Xbox One and gaming on Windows 10, Microsoft is more interested in fostering a happy community of players than it is with finances, says Fable Legends game director David Eckelberry.

Speaking with GamesIndustry.biz, Eckelberry said the recent decision to make Fable Legends a free-to-play game was about innovation rather than economics.

"It's a model that is a weapon, in some sense. So a weapon can be used for good and a weapon can be used for evil. We wanted to be sure that the world knew that we weren't doing this for the reasons of a business model. Nobody came to Lionhead studios and said 'we want you to make a free-to-play game', they said 'make a new Fable game.' And we said 'OK, let's experiment, let's be innovative.'"

Eckelberry said the business model came into focus only after extensive prototyping. He added that even once it became clear that a free-to-play model would be suitable, the studio kept it under wraps for some time.

"Even though we knew for a while what we were doing in terms of business model, we really wanted to say to the world 'get excited about this pretty new game, it's a AAA game, it's not a game that we made on the cheap,'" he said.

"It's the biggest and most expensive Fable game that we've ever made in terms of the amount of time we're investing in it and the size of the team. It's a major project for Lionhead, as big as we've ever done."

"We really wanted the world to get a sense of that, we wanted everyone to know we wanted to do this innovative thing. Look, whether we had charged $60 for it or brought it to market as we are, we wanted people to be excited about playing it, instead of worrying about how they were going to buy it."

The kinds of microtransactions that will feature in Fable Legends will be cosmetic and character-based, said Eckelberry.

""Everything that affects gameplay can be earned from the treasure chests or buying it using silver in town," he explained.

"Now, if you have a real love of one of these characters you can customise them. So your Evienne and my Evienne might look pretty different: you tweak her hair style or colour, you might be able to buy an outfit that doesn't have any stats or gameplay effect on it but that just looks neat and that you want to wear."

In addition new storylines and new areas will be added to the game over time.

Players can "download the game, play the hell out of it and if they have a great time that's great, and then come back a few months later, see the three or four new quests that we put in, the new characters, the new creatures, there's always going to be a reason to revisit and experience more story and more content," said Eckelberry.

Fable Legends is scheduled for release on Xbox One and Windows 10 later this year.