Playground's Fable slated for 2025 release - here's a trailer hinting at what it's like to play
Albion's greatest hero (retired) holds forth
Microsoft and Playground's genuinely long-awaited Fable reboot will launch in 2025, and they've released a new trailer which... seems... good? And is also quite informative about the moment-to-moment of the game. The video is framed as the memoir of a paunchy retired champion, Humphry, who once mentored a young heroine I presume will be the game's main character, though it's ambiguous. She could also be the villain. Then again, Fable is a series in which you can be the villain. Egad, such shenanigans!
The footage also treats us to what feels like a representative mix of actions from the game - wandering a castle marketplace chinwagging with less-than-courteous civilians, stabbing dryads in the mouth, using magic to launch enemies so you can pepper them with arrows. Even after last year's fairly glossy trailer, I'm still quite surprised by how photoreal the new Fable looks. While some may prefer the stylised cartoon vibe of the older Lionhead games and even the rakish Arkane-esque appearance of the abandoned Fable Legends, I think Playground has thrashed out an appealing visual direction that doesn't get in the way of Fable's parodic writing.
I remember trying to persuade Playground to say something, anything about their new Fable when I profiled them for Edge before the launch of Forza Horizon 4, whose British landscapes were probably great preparation for working on Albion. It was just me and a studio exec, locked in a room for 40 minutes, competing to think of ways of mentioning Fable without saying the word "Fable". My opinion then and now was and is that Playground are the natural choice to reboot Fable, though much will depend on whether they can put their own stamp on the humour.
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