After years of leaks and rumours, Playground Games officially announced it was working on something new alongside its regular Forza releases back in 2020, confirming it was reviving the Fable series. Prior to the franchise being put on ice after developer Lionhead Studios closed its doors back in 2016, Fable was a staple of Xbox’s first-party lineup, providing players passage to a distinctly British, dark-comedy-tinged fantasy world with a heavy focus on moral choice.
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Although we know Playground Games is hard at work rebuilding an all-new adventure in the whimsical realm of Albion, the actual details are somewhat slim. So, to help eager chicken chasers keep up to date, we’ve put together a list of everything we currently know about Fable’s long-awaited reboot.
Fable Is Being Developed By Playground Games
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As mentioned in the introduction, the team behind the Fable reboot is Playground Games. Taking the reins from developer Lionhead Studios who originally created Fable, the British developer is best known for its work on the Forza racing series. Fable will be something entirely new for the developer, switching out stunningly rendered race cars and tracks for picturesque fairytale forests and bandit battles.
When Will Fable Be Released?
With Xbox officially confirming its returning to the world of Fable, your first question is likely when exactly you can expect to get your hands on the reboot. Unfortunately, Fable currently has no release date, and the lack of any release window in either of its two teasers probably suggests we’ve still got a while longer to wait.
What we do know, however, is that the game will be launching before The Elder Scrolls 6. Speaking to us in an interview on Unlocked’s 500th episode, Xbox head Phil Spencer talked about Fable and Obisidan Entertainment’s upcoming RPG, Avowed. After speaking about both games, he remarked that “The Elder Scrolls 6 is further out,” revealing that both RPGs are set to launch before Bethesda’s next entry in the Elder Scrolls universe.
Considering The Elder Scrolls 6 is still “five plus years away” according to the Microsoft vs FTC Court Trial documents released in June, we at least know that we’ll be getting Fable within the next few years.
What Platforms Will Fable Release On?
As with the three previous Fable games and the series’ various spin-offs, Fable will be an Xbox console exclusive. Assuming it releases in the next few years, you can expect to find it on Xbox Series X, Xbox Series S and PC.
As confirmed by the Xbox Games Showcase this year, we also know that you will be able to play Fable on Xbox Game Pass the day it launches.
Latest Fable Trailers
Although we don’t currently have an estimate on when the game will launch, we do have a decent idea of the direction and style Playground is hoping to follow with its take on the tongue-in-cheek British fantasy series thanks to two teaser trailers.
Our first look at Fable capped off Xbox’s summer showcase back in 2020, and was a more general announcement teaser confirming that Fable was back and as irreverently silly as ever. The actual trailer begins with a dramatic voice-over, as a fairy flies through a scenic country trail covered in magical, glowing fauna. The fairy stops to admire a flower only to be snared by a frog’s tongue and devoured, as the camera pulls up to reveal a sprawling fantasy landscape.
The second trailer then released three years later, switching positions and opening Xbox’s 2023 showcase. This much longer look at Playground Game’s Fable revival revealed that British comedian, Richard Ayoade, would star in the game as a giant, with the player character raiding his home in a long, cinematic chase sequence.
Alongside proving that the signature British humour was definitely here to stay, it gave a first look at the reboot’s visuals, fairy-tale-focused setting and the return of two iconic Fable enemies: bandits and balverines. Most importantly though, it confirmed that the game would indeed revive the series’ strange fixation on kicking chickens.
What Will Fable’s Gameplay Be Like?
As for what you can expect from Fable’s moment-to-moment gameplay, Playground has confirmed that it’ll once again be an open-world action RPG. Outside of that, we haven’t seen any extended gameplay footage just yet, but the most recent trailer did have some brief snippets alluding to what we can expect.
During the teaser, we see a short glimpse of combat, as the player character clashes swords with bandits and throws a fireball across the battlefield. That’s all pretty par for the course in a Fable game, however, the most interesting glimpse of gameplay comes during a chase sequence across the gargantuan furniture of Dave the Giant’s house. It seems this new take on Fable won’t shy away from implementing cinematic action set pieces, which is already a new string to Fable’s bow.
And for those wondering whether these slices of gameplay were simply pre-rendered for the showcase, Playground Games’ Lead Lighting Artist, Lucas Koelz, later confirmed via X that the entire trailer was captured on an Xbox Series X.
As for an overview of what you can expect when you finally get your hands on the game, Xbox Game Studios Head Matt Booty told The Guardian that Playground and Xbox’s goal is to find a “balance between what you’re going to bring forward, what still stands up, and what you want to add that’s new.” In short, it seems the gameplay will be a modernisation of Fable that retains and enhances its best elements while adding some new fresh ideas to the table.
Playground has yet to confirm the mechanic will return in any official capacity, but it’s also pretty safe to assume that moral choices will make a comeback. Through every iteration of Fable so far, players have been able to make good or evil decisions throughout the story, affecting the game world, narrative and physical appearance of their character. Fable’s announcement trailer specifically references this world telling stories filled with “legendary heroes and treacherous villains,” which seems to be a dead giveaway that players will once again be able to become as divinely pure or devilishly evil as they desire.
Where and When Will Fable Be Set?
With two pretty short teaser trailers to work with, information on the story of Fable 4 is currently pretty slim. We aren’t even sure if the game takes place in the same central setting of Albion, with Playground Games yet to confirm whether the upcoming reboot is an extension of the original franchise’s main canon or a completely fresh take on the Fable universe.
However, one element we can derive from the trailers is that it seems to be returning to the more traditional high fantasy setting of the original Fable, straying away from Fable 2 and 3’s focus on the Industrial Revolution. The 2023 Xbox Games Showcase trailer all but confirms we can expect a medieval-esque setting, showing off small villages, candlelit taverns and undisturbed woodland paths.
Whether it takes place in the same continuity as the original games or not, it appears we’re looking at a return to Fable’s roots.
Fable Will Use the Same Engine as Forza Motorsport
As confirmed via a Software Engineer job listing posted by Playground Games back in 2021, Fable is being developed on the same engine as Forza. The engine in question is the ForzaTech Engine, which was used to build the likes of Forza Motorsport and Forza Horizon 5. If the most recent Fable trailer is anything to go by, the upcoming RPG has inherited all of the visual fidelity of the Forza series, but it’ll be interesting to see how flexible the engine is in creating an open-world RPG.
Fable Will Act as a “New Beginning” for the Franchise
While we don’t know whether Playground Games is aiming to continue the continuity of prior Fable titles, the official announcement trailer’s description confirms that Xbox intends for this to be a “new beginning” for the series.
Whether that’s alluding to the game being a full reboot remains to be seen, but one thing we know for certain is that Playground Games and Xbox have big plans for Fable going forward.
Callum Williams is a freelance media writer with years of experience as a game critic, news reporter, guides writer and features writer.
