Fable (2026)

Full disclosure, I’m a fan of Fable. This content will be biased in that I’ve been a fan of the franchise for a long time.

When Lionshead Studios closed in 2016, I had lost all hope of another Fable game. Fable came out in 2004, Fable II in 2008, and Fable III in 2010. I won’t go into the subsequent games, but that trio consumed countless hours of my life. In 2017, Phil Spencer (Head of Xbox) mentioned that the franchise had ” a lot of places it could go”, and my hopes were renewed. At the Xbox Showcase in July 2020, it was formally announced that Playground Games was spearheading the reboot of the franchise. If you know Playground Games, they are primarily famous for creating the Forza Horizon series. I wasn’t sure how they would carry over to a new Fable, but I was cautiously optimistic. If nothing else, it would be visually gorgeous. In June 2023, we finally got our first glance into the game and just this week saw much more through a developer deep dive and a release window of ‘Autumn 2026’, so not long now.

I won’t dive into the discourse of what the online masses said/didn’t say with the first reveals in 2023, but will focus this piece on what I saw yesterday, my opinions, and my hopes for the new launch of the franchise. In other words, strictly my opinions as a fan. I will make a quick note to those online obsessed with calling this game ‘woke.’ I feel they must have never played a Fable game before. Previous games included cross-dressing, gay marriage and even a sex change potion you could take.

In interviews with the developer, it became clear that the studio had a lot of Fable fans working on the series and they really wanted to remain inspired by the Lionshead Studios work. They even mentioned they found a document from Lionshead that said, “Fable is fairytale and not fantasy” and they wanted to stick with that. Fairytales are smaller stories focused on everyday people, and that is one thing I always loved about Fable. You could be the hero of Albion. They are personal, whimsical and have a moral component to them.

Breaking down what I saw yesterday, this is what we know.

The developers have referred to this game as a ‘New beginning.’ This is a reboot of the series, a new story within Albion.

You begin the game as a child, like the original game. Something has happened, and people in your town have been turned to stone. Your only clues are a mysterious stranger you caught a glimpse of and your memories of something your grandmother said to you about Bowerstone and the Heroes Guild. “And so it begins….”

There’s nothing forcing you along the story path; it’s a fully open world and GORGEOUS.

There is a mix of melee, ranged, and magic. Fighting groups of enemies, some very familiar ones. All the enemies have strengths and weaknesses.

There is no objective good or evil – This seems to be a huge problem for people. The original trilogy had a distinct good or evil. Your choices not only changed what people thought of you, but also your appearance, even including you having horns vs a halo. This Fable decided that you will not change your appearance with your choices and have more of a world view of a scale or morality. What I love is that you can have different traits and actions in different parts of the world. One town you might be ‘good,’ while you might be disliked in other areas. I do understand people being upset with not having something that feels quintessential to what made Fable unique, but I am embracing the change and excited to see how it will play out. There is something about seeing you as ‘normal’ in appearance and not knowing what your true morality is.

Unique worldview of the NPCs – Over 1,000 NPCs, each with roles, names, personalities, and routines. All fully voiced. The NPC system is incredibly complex; you could follow everyone for a day and watch them live their life.

You can still buy a house (or every house) in Albion and even buy every business in Albion. You can be a landlord, get a job, or have NPCs work for you. You can romance a villager, get married and have children. You can marry multiple people at a time and have multiple families. You can get divorced.

You will see ripple effects of your decisions pretty much everywhere.

The British humour remains, thankfully, and manifests in lots of different ways. It’s inspired by the rich variety of British comedies.