At their Xbox Games Showcase Livestream, Microsoft revealed fairly extensive lineup of new games, from juggernauts like Halo Infinite or the eighth Forza Motorsport title, to some newer projects like Avowed, a fantasy RPG being developed by Obsidian. Out of all the new games shown on the livestream, a new Fable title was definitely one of the more surprising reveals.
Fable is a fantasy action role-playing series, similar to The Elder Scrolls. It was first released on Xbox and PC in 2004 and received two sequels, Fable II and III, both on the Xbox 360, as well as Fable: The Journey, a spinoff that utilized the Xbox Kinect.
Since then, the franchise has had a rather turbulent history – in 2013 developer Lionhead Studios teased Fable Legends, a prequel game for the Xbox One, but it was cancelled in 2016 with the closure of Lionhead. Then, in May 2016, former Lionhead developers formed Flaming Fowl Studios and crowdfunded Fable Fortune, free-to-play collectible card game that was released on the Xbox One in February 2018 and shut down recently in March 2020. With that being said, Fable is finally coming back, this time on the Xbox Series X.
Fable 4 (simply titled Fable in the reveal trailer) has been announced to be in development by Playground Games, the AAA studio behind Forza Horizons. They became part of Xbox Game Studios back in 2018, and back in October 2019 they were hiring new staff for an “entirely new AAA open world action RPG“, which we now know to be Fable. The last mainline entry was Fable III on the Xbox 360 all the way back in 2010, so excitement is definitely building.
While the trailer doesn’t feature any gameplay, it does showcase a lush, vibrant forest that players will hopefully be able to explore, as well as a humorous and gruesome scene of a fairy being gobbled up by a large toad.
Fable will be available to Xbox Game Pass members on day one, and while we don’t have a set release date for the title, late 2021 seems to be our best bet. I, for one, am excited to see what the finished game looks like, and I hope you are too.