Peter Molyneux, the designer leading Lionhead in the development process for Fable III, has announced that the game will not be getting a complex weapons system that allowed for them to evolve depending on the actions of the players and to be traded via an online action system.

The feature was one of the highlights when the new Albion based game was initially announced so it's a bit of a surprise to see it dropped so close to the launch date.

The Xbox 360 version of Fable III is set to arrive on October 26 in North America and three days later in Europe, with the game also set to get a PC port powered by Games for Windows Live at a later unspecified date.

Peter Molyneux told the Official Xbox Magazine that, “The burden of running this online auction server became a burden too many.”

He added, “It was on our list of features to do, but we had the choice of doing the main co-op right, and balancing the game, or we could do the trading house. And we decided to do the co-op.”

Peter Molyneux is well known for the enthusiasm he has when announcing new projects but also for how the finished product lacks some of the features that were advertised.

One problem that lead to the elimination of the weapons auction system might be the quick pace for development that the Lionhead team adopted when working on Fable III.

John McCormack said the new game is “definitely bigger than Fable II by a long way but it's bigger in breadth as well. We've got a lot more variation in this one.”

He then added, “We never had an engine before. Now, with the engine, iteration is faster. We're working at 10-times the speed we ever did on Fable II.”

Fable III will follow the player as he overthrows the corrupt government of Albion through revolution and then work to please those who supported them during the struggle.