- Fable Game director Ralph Fulton calls the game a fairy tale story, explaining that “fairy tale and fantasy probably exist on opposite ends of a spectrum” for Playground Games.
- The game is an open-world game, but Fulton emphasizes that “there is no ticking time bomb” for players to worry about.
- Fable There will be stakes, but players can explore the open world and “nothing forces you” to follow the main path.
General Manager of Children’s Games and Fable Game director Ralph Fulton has called the upcoming game an open-world fairy tale rather than the “grand, expansive” fantasy story players might be used to.
Following the Xbox Developer Direct on January 22, where Playground Games finally announced that Fable set to release in Fall 2026 for PC, Xbox Series
When asked what is the essence of Fable Namely, Fulton explained that Playground borrowed from the original trilogy created by Lionhead Studios and decided to lean heavily on the classic fairy tale style of the series.
“We came up with a bunch of things, the first of which I would say we actually inherited from Lionhead. When we started working on this project, we came up with a treasure trove of Lionhead documents that had been in storage,” Fulton said.
“Something I thought was brilliantly concise was one of the documents, which said: ‘Fable It’s a fairy tale, not a fantasy,’ which is just great.”
The game’s director explains that, in Playground’s interpretation, “fairy tale and fantasy probably exist on opposite ends of a spectrum,” suggesting that Fable It will deal with smaller “intimate” stories rather than something you’d expect from other big fantasy tales.
“I think we all know what fantasy is: it is the witcheris Skyrimis the lord of the ringsis game of Thrones. And I think the tone is quite grandiose, broad, geopolitical, serious. You know, you can almost imagine the color palette of the fantasy,” he said.
“And then fairy tales exist just at the opposite end of that spectrum. Fairy tales are intimate, they’re little stories about regular people; they’re not grand and broad, they’re very personal and whimsical, and ultimately they’re about what happens when magic touches the lives of ordinary people. And they also have this kind of moral component.
“And I think that’s a brilliant description of what Fable it really is: it runs through our art style, it runs through the construction of our world. “We’ve really executed that fairy tale idea in every part of the game we’re building.”
Look
In FablePlayers will explore the land of Albion, an immersive medieval-style world with choices and consequences, reputation and fairytale endings.
From the new trailer, it’s clear that Albion will be rich with new discoveries, but Fulton emphasized that players will still be able to take their time enjoying the world, even though the game has stakes.
He explained that the events of the game begin to unfold after an inciting incident, which he calls the “catalyst” of the story, where the player’s grandmother and everyone in the town they grew up in are turned to stone by a mysterious stranger.
The player is then left alone and forced to venture out into the world, and it is suggested that they visit Bowerstone, the Heroes’ Guild; However, the game director explained that there is nothing “forcing” players to go down that path first.
“So there’s a gentle implication that you should head to the Heroes Guild, and maybe they can give you help,” Fulton said.
“But the nature of our game is that as soon as you leave your village, you can go pretty much anywhere. It’s a truly open world, so the world is yours to explore. And we’ve written the story so that, although there are risks (your grandmother, your village), there is no time bomb.
“There’s nothing forcing you to follow the path, because we want to allow the player permission to go and do something else in the game. You can go to the northernmost village in Albion, get a job, settle down and get married if you want. The story will wait for you, which I think is really important with the really rich side activities that Fable The games are coming.”
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