According to an official announcement on the official Xbox website, Fable II’s ‘Knothole Island’ DLC will not be hitting Xbox Live Marketplace until “late January 2009” because of “unexpected technical difficulties.” This marks the second delay of the content that was originally supposed to debut on December 12.

‘Knothole Island’ will introduce players to a new landmass with several new quests, items, properties, and enemies. The source of the problem could be tied into its nature – the developer of the content, Lionhead, were going to put two different versions out for consumers.

The premium version (800 Microsoft Space Dollars) would allow players full freedom with the content. The regular version (free) would restrict players from the vast majority of the ‘Knothole Island’ DLC unless they were with a friend who had purchased the content. One could certainly speculate that getting these two different downloads to work together may have been the source of the problem.

Because of the delay of the content, Microsoft has put a hold on their “Knothole Island Download & Win Sweepstakes” which was intended to put players in a lottery to win decent prizes if they purchased and played the content between December 22 and 23. We were all eagerly awaiting this contest and are severely disturbed that it has been delayed.