Microsoft and Playground Games have confirmed that Fable will be launching this autumn, and coming to Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5 and PC at the same time.
Featured during the Developer Direct stream, this is really the first good long look that we’ve had at Fable, after years of build up and teasers. From the giant Richard Ayoade to little snippets of gameplay with a hero wandering through a fantasy city, battling werewolves and goblins, each trailer so far had been rather short. Now we’ve seen a good bit more.
You begin the game as a child, growing up in Briar Hill, which is when your heroic powers first emerge, marking you as Albion’s first hero in a generation. But then your town and all its people are suddenly turned to stone by a stranger. You have to venture out to figure out what’s going on.
This is a huge and seamless open world, and it looks gorgeous. At its heart is the capital city of Bowerstone with the huge Fairfax Castle, and all the upper and lower class. To the north, there’s the windswept city of Bloodstone, with two rival gangs vying for power, and the Cult of Shadows.
You’ll be able to pick from a range of character heads, as opposed to having a full character customisation suite, but pair that with tattoos, scars, and a range of outfits to still give yourself an individual look. As in the original game, your playstyle is personalised, blending together melee, ranges and magics. There’s light and heavy combos, building up to slick finishers, while ranged breaks through guard. There’s plenty of returning enemies as well as new ones, like the giant chicken-like cockatrice.
Once again, you can take the game at your own pace, exploring the world. You can buy a house (or all the houses), run a business as a blacksmith or something, marry people, have children, and on and on and on. These are fan-favourite features.
There are more than a thousand people living in this world, getting up, going to work, have hobbies, go to bed, and start it all again. You could even be hiring them, you could be their landlord (or have evicted them). All of these characters are tracked, they have thoughts about you, and they are all fully voiced, and you can talk to them to find out what they think about you.
Morality returns, but it’s not black and white, with a lot of grey areas and subjectivity. Everything you do will earn you a bit of reputation and, again, the people will let you know what they think.
Your choices change the world. Early on you’ll meet Dave – Richard Ayoade – who’s a farmer that manages to grow himself into a giant, and you have to decide what to do about that. If you choose to kill him, then his gigantic corpse will become a fixture of the world and have its impact.
This classic Lionhead RPG series is being revived at Playground Games (better known for their open world arcade racing), but development has naturally taken a good bit longer than has been expected or hoped.
Originally announced way back at the start of the generation in 2020, it was three long years before we saw the game next, and then another year after that when the release was set for 2025. But then in February of last year it was delayed to 2026 with Head of Xbox Game Studios Craig Duncan saying “While I know that’s not maybe the news people want to hear, what I want to assure people of is that it’s definitely worth the wait, and I have unequivocal confidence in the Playground team.”
So, does it look like it’s been worth the wait?
