New Fable from Playground Games

[thesheeep]

I was pretty disappointed by Fable 3. Couldn't even marry the dog.

Seriously, though, that whole social aspect to it is fun for maybe an hour or two, but that's basically all there is beside the lacklustre combat.
It is not a game for RPG fans. Nor action fans. Not really sure who the game actually is for, to be honest...

 

[buru5]

Will probably be shit. Fable: Lost Chapters is nostalgic for me but it's not a great game by any means, just got worse from there.

What is the point of even discussing this series now?

Believe it or not, some people like discussing games that you don't like.

 

[Infinitron]

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2018-01-17-sources-microsoft-plots-fable-return

Sources: Microsoft plots Fable return
Less than two years after shutting down Lionhead.

Work is underway on a brand new, big-budget Fable game, Eurogamer can reveal.

Fable franchise owner Microsoft has tasked UK developer Playground, which makes the Forza Horizon racing games for Xbox and PC, with creating this new Fable, sources close to the project have told Eurogamer. Microsoft said in a statement it does not comment on rumour or speculation.

We've heard the new Fable is planned as a story and character-focussed open-world action RPG. A significant investment in its development is also planned, with some 200 people set to work on the game at Playground's newly-established second office in Leamington Spa, Warwickshire.

The fantasy world of Albion is set to live once again.

Don't expect to play this new Fable any time soon, however. We've heard it's early days in terms of development, with Playground currently staffing up the team from double digits to its triple digit target.

Microsoft's decision to return to the much-loved fantasy world of Albion comes less than two years after it shut down Fable creator Lionhead and cancelled Fable Legends. Fable Legends, unlike previous Fable games, was designed as a free-to-play "game as a service", with a heavy focus on multiplayer (for more on how that went down, check out our extensive investigation into Lionhead's demise).

According to former Lionhead developers, staff at the studio had wanted to make a story-driven, single-player Fable 4 while Legends was in the works, and had hoped the studio would move on to making such a game after Legends was done and dusted.

Ex-Lionhead staff Eurogamer spoke with said they were excited to see Playground bring Fable back from the dead, but this excitement is tempered somewhat by a sadness that Lionhead was never given the chance to make its dream Fable 4.

"I have slightly mixed feelings," Fable co-creator Simon Carter told Eurogamer.

"On the one hand it's great for the UK games industry, and very pleasing that Fable isn't dead; indeed, it will be lovely to play one as a punter, without coming out in hives.

"On the other hand it is a little curious to get rid of the team that is uniquely expert in making Fable, and then try and make Fable. Fable is a weird game, and a tough one to deconstruct for a new team. That said, the team in question is very talented, and I'm sure they'll do a fantastic job."

So, what changed? We've heard Microsoft's rekindled interest in Fable was in part inspired by Sony's phenomenal success with Guerrilla Games' PlayStation 4-exclusive Horizon Zero Dawn. As of June 2017, Guerrilla's story-driven, single-player open-world action RPG had sold over 3.4m copies.

As for this new Fable, Playground is seen as a highly talented developer which has done fantastic work with the Forza series for Microsoft. Forza Horizon 3 was one of Xbox's biggest games of 2016, and the hope is the studio can make a high-quality Fable adventure once it brings in open-world RPG expertise.

This new Fable is seen as something of a clean break, and while all Fable Legends assets were backed up after Lionhead shut down, the expectation is Playground is starting from scratch as it bids to revive the Xbox-exclusive franchise.

Ted Timmins, an ex-Lionhead veteran who now works at Microsoft studio Rare on Sea of Thieves, mentioned: "I was a Fable (Project Ego!) fan before I was a Fable developer, so the thought of one of my favourite franchises of all time rumoured to be making a comeback excites me greatly."

 

[LESS T_T]

So, what changed? We've heard Microsoft's rekindled interest in Fable was in part inspired by Sony's phenomenal success with Guerrilla Games' PlayStation 4-exclusive Horizon Zero Dawn. As of June 2017, Guerrilla's story-driven, single-player open-world action RPG had sold over 3.4m copies.

Horizon: One Dawn, I bet.

These guys...

So they've been destroyed multiple games while pushing games-as-a-service and cloud to almost everything (Stormlands, unmade Fable 4, Fable Legends, Scalebound, Project: Knoxville, Project Spark, and perpetually delaying Crackdown 3), and now they want story driven single-player games because of the rival's success.

 

[Infinitron]

So, what changed? We've heard Microsoft's rekindled interest in Fable was in part inspired by Sony's phenomenal success with Guerrilla Games' PlayStation 4-exclusive Horizon Zero Dawn. As of June 2017, Guerrilla's story-driven, single-player open-world action RPG had sold over 3.4m copies.

Horizon: One Dawn, I bet.

These guys...

So they've been destroyed multiple games while pushing games-as-a-service and cloud to almost everything (Stormlands, unmade Fable 4, Fable Legends, Scalebound, Project: Knoxville, Project Spark, and perpetually delaying Crackdown 3), and now they want story driven single-player games because of the rival's success.

Weird thing is it's not that big of a success? 3.4 million, whoop tee doo. That's what makes you change your corporate strategy and not, I dunno, Fallout 4? Maybe that's a lot for an exclusive.

 

[Jaesun]

Can I just move this thread to Propserland?

 

[Haba]

There is one reason why this game can actually be good.

...

No Molyneux.

 

[LESS T_T]

Weird thing is it's not that big of a success? 3.4 million, whoop tee doo. That's what makes you change your corporate strategy and not, I dunno, Fallout 4? Maybe that's a lot for an exclusive.

Well, I can't recall one Xbox One exclusive that shipped millions in the first year, probably except Forza racing games (oh, and PUBG recently, but it's a timed exclusive). On the other hand Sony has multiple story-driven million sellers.

 

[sstacks]

My speculation is the success of Breath of the Wild is what has pushed this.

I was so excited way back in the day when the first Fable was announced, how Peter M. talked about how your choices would build who you were as you aged and etc. And then when the game came out you play like an hour as a kid and them boom you are an adult. I lost interest in the series at that point and have never played it.

 

[sstacks]

https://kotaku.com/the-man-who-promised-too-much-1537352493

In interviews leading up to the game, Molyneux had made ambitious promises—that Fable would let you have children; that the game would span your hero’s whole lifetime; that you could knock an acorn off a tree and slowly, over the course of the game, watch it grow into a tree of its own. None of those things happened.
​

I don't let myself get burned by hype very often, even in those days, but I did that time. You broke my heart, Peter!

 

[deuxhero]

Meh, I doubt it will be any good but Fable has nowhere to go but up.

 

[Zanzoken]

On the other hand it is a little curious to get rid of the team that is uniquely expert in making Fable, and then try and make Fable.

What a dumb statement. If Micro was happy with what the old Fable team created then why was the studio closed?

My speculation is the success of Breath of the Wild is what has pushed this.

That makes a lot of sense actually. Make a huge open world to ooo and ahh at, add some whimsical cutesy silliness, then top it off with the basic PG fantasy save the world nonsense.

The Fable IP fits the bill for a westernized Zelda clone pretty well, and the casuals should eat it up (at least on paper).

 

[Werdna's Revenge]

That makes a lot of sense actually. Make a huge open world to ooo and ahh at, add some whimsical cutesy silliness, then top it off with the basic PG fantasy save the world nonsense.

The Fable IP fits the bill for a westernized Zelda clone pretty well, and the casuals should eat it up (at least on paper).

I liked BotW, but Fable could certainly pull something off with a similar tone and maybe even a bit better.

Who am I kidding, it's Fable it'll be shit.

 

[RNGsus]

Fable 1 was fun for what it was..

Huffing glue was fun for what it was.

What does "for what it was" even mean, what was Fable? If you liked it, just say so. The internet can't say shit.

 

[ColCol]

https://kotaku.com/the-man-who-promised-too-much-1537352493

In interviews leading up to the game, Molyneux had made ambitious promises—that Fable would let you have children; that the game would span your hero’s whole lifetime; that you could knock an acorn off a tree and slowly, over the course of the game, watch it grow into a tree of its own. None of those things happened.
​

I don't let myself get burned by hype very often, even in those days, but I did that time. You broke my heart, Peter!

Christ, yeah, my brother and I ate that shit up when we were young. What a huge disappointment.

 

[Jimmious]

Fable 1 was fun for what it was..

Huffing glue was fun for what it was.

What does "for what it was" even mean, what was Fable? If you liked it, just say so. The internet can't say shit.

But you do get what huffing glue is, right? Do you want me to explain that too?

Fable was a game and it was fun, what don't you understand from this statement? You need some specific information for Fable? Google it motherfucker. It was fun for whatever you find in google that it was. FFS with the edgelords

 

[sstacks]

Being overly explainy here, but I also feel the questioner is being overly criticial:

"For what it was" means you take a game or experience or whatever based on what it was, not what you wanted it to be.

For example, as an action-ish RPG sort of based on D&D 5E it was fine for what it was. Measured as a full on CRPG and/or a full implementation of 5E it would fall short.

So "for what it was" it was fine. Perfectly useful phrase in common conversation.

 

[Jimmious]

Yeah exactly, but I got annoyed and had to answer accordingly...
Obviously Fable wasn't some amazing RPG experience with deep systems but for some light-hearted action-RPG with the whole "affect the world and your character with your choices" shenanigans, it was.... fun. There you go, fun for what it was.

 

[RapineDel]

It'll be Horizon Zero Dawn with loot boxes. They need something to move One X's and Forza isn't cutting it, not to mention third party developers couldn't give a shit about the Xbox so the X patches would be lackluster or at best on part with the PS4 Pro. Sea of Thieves will bomb so this is probably a safer bet for them at this point.

 

[McPlusle]

Really, the series can only go up with Molyneux's hands off the series and a hopefully much better studio and much, much quieter director in charge. And I trust that Playground can make Fable 4's world at least somewhat interesting, since the Forza Horizon games are among the best open-world racing games, but there's no telling if they can make a decent action-RPG.

 

[LESS T_T]

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/artic...motive-and-rocksteady-talent-for-upcoming-rpg

Playground Games hires BioWare, EA Motive and Rocksteady talent for upcoming RPG
Forza Horizon developer also welcomes developers from Ninja Theory, Guerrilla Games and more to second studio

UK studio Playground Games has hired another wave of top talent for its unannounced action RPG, GamesIndustry.biz can reveal.

The developer has added a range of recruits from acclaimed games makers such as BioWare, Rocksteady Games, Ninja Theory, and Guerrilla Games, plus hires from Electronic Arts' Motive studio, which is still working on its debut title.

All of the new hires will be working on Playground's open-world action RPG, which is being developed at the firm's second studio we revealed last year. It has already hired a variety of AAA talent for the project, including devs from the GTA V, Metal Gear Solid and Hellblade teams.

Kicking off the new round of hires is principal environment artist Scotty Brown, who previously held the same position at EA Motive, where he contributed to Star Wars Battlefront II. He has also held similar positions at BioWare, Electronic Arts and Midway Games.

Brown will be working alongside lead environment artist Noel Lukasewich, who has spent the first 13 years of his career at BioWare. While there, Lukasewich worked on all four Mass Effect titles, as well as various DLC additions to the original trilogy.


Clockwise from top left: New recruits Noel Lukasewich, Rob den Dekker, Scotty Brown, Chris Goodall, Joe McKernan and Martin Lancaster

Newly hired narrative director Martin Lancaster joins from Rocksteady Studios, where he served as senior scriptwriter and later lead scriptwriter on the more recent Batman games, Arkham Knight and Arkham VR.

Chris Goodall comes over from Ninja Theory and takes on the role of principal animator. He joined the Cambridge-based studio back in 2009 and has since worked on Enslaved: Odyssey to the West, DmC: Devil May Cry and the BAFTA-winning Hellblade, as well as various Disney Infinity content packs.

The QA team expands with lead technician Rob den Dekker, also a former Ninja Theory staffer. He has also worked at NaturalMotion, Microsoft, Lionhead and Testology, testing best-selling titles ranging from Fable and Fable 2 to LittleBigPlanet and Playground's own Forza Horizon 2.

Finally, lead UI artist Joe McKernan returns to Playground after a four-year absence. He previously worked at the studio on the first two Forza Horizon games, before leaving in 2014 to work on Horizon Zero Dawn at Guerrilla Games, and later Destiny 2 at Bungie.

“I'm really pleased with the quality of the team we're building here at Playground," studio director Gavin Raeburn tells us. "We continue to attract world-class talent from around the world thanks to our exciting projects and the passion of our team. It's been a fantastic start for our second studio and I look forward to seeing it continue to grow over the coming months.”

Playground Games has been extremely secretive about its open-world action RPG, even with the developers it looks to hire. We gained an insight into this process earlier this year.

Last month, Microsoft announced it had acquired the Forza Horizon studio during E3 2018, and creative director Ralph Fulton shared his optimism about the new ownership with GamesIndustry.biz.

Narrative director Martin Lancaster was also writer of Crysis triolgy: http://www.mobygames.com/developer/sheet/view/developerId,346649/

 

[ADL]

• First/Third Person
• In Depth character creator
• Completely Open
• No guns
• Can ignore main quest and never become a hero
• Players can build towns, ties into main quest heavily if you get the bad ending and fail
• Multiplayer
• Unreal Engine

Story/world details:

Spoiler

Albion and Aurora are gone. "Lands reduced to fables." The Spire was rebuilt and used by a mad king to wish that an asteroid would strike the planet. He also wished it would happen again in the far future. Eons later and everything is new (medieval themed, new continents) and you have to stop the destruction of the planet again. Theresa and a Heroes Guild are preserved on another planet via a demon door. Time Travel heavily involved in play. Jack of Blades returns.

 

[DalekFlay]

"Multiplayer."

*checks out*

I would like this to spur a Fable 2 PC port and bringing Fable 3 back to Steam though.

 

[a Goat]

Fam' boi

 

[Sailor Woedica]

Oh wow this whole time and I never knew the upcoming Fable was a sequel to some old games!!! There's a clip from the leaked video on reddit before it was taken down! Lewks like they were totally inspired by Avengers Infinity War: